• Published May 1, 2017

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On Thursday last week, we had the pleasure of attending a UBTECH and gammaTek event which introduced us to the world of robotics. From toys for kids to corporate service bots; the apocalypse is closer than ever!

So you’ve probably never heard of UBTECH before, neither had I; however, this Chinese company has been around the robotics scene for the last five years and what they’ve managed to achieve in that time is rather spectacular. Their largest focus has been making servo motors powerful enough and small enough to be incorporated into toy-sized bots, a goal they’ve to achieve with incredibly surprising results. The end-goal being a product stack that ranged from teaching children about robotics with their JIMU line of toys to a corporate-based service bot called the Cruzr, the focus of this event was the former.

The whole concept behind these JIMU’s was to create a LEGO-like building system while incorporating these incredible servos and adding mobile control and programming methods. Confusing? Simple enough for a child to use.

I got to spend some time with a couple of these JIMU models and it was as easy as downloading the app and connecting straight to your bot, after which instructions can be given such as dancing, walking and more. But it doesn’t end there. Commands can also be created through this app or even downloaded from the web giving a surprisingly large amount of functionality to these deceptively simple looking toys.

Moving one step up to something slightly larger and more advanced, you have the Alpha One Pro; a humanoid bot with 16 servo motors and incredible power; UBTECH calls this the “family” robot. The Alpha One Pro features things that the JIMU do not, like internal speaker systems and a desktop application which gives a much more advanced level of control. This includes being able to set specific instructions to each servo motor independently of the others and has a video-editing-esque timeline in which the behaviours can be timed. For example, the video below shows an entire dance choreographed through the app.

But that’s not all! UBTECH shared their goal of releasing a new model of the Alpha before the end of the year; one which has Amazon Alexa integration, built-in microphones and voice control to make a novelty item into something that could be potentially incredibly useful, her name is Lynx.

Lastly, UBTECh let us in on their plans for Cruzr; this 45kg, 1.2m bot has a limited form of AI and is designed to be used in all sorts of service environments (like banks or airports) to make life easier for customers. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to play around with Cruzr, however, UBTECH informed us that they are planned (or implemented already, lost in translation) to be used in multiple Chinese banks to deal with the ever increasing number of people who use said banks.

All-in-all, this was an incredibly interesting technology which I am ecstatic has finally arrived on our shores and it looks like UBTECH isn’t slowing down. Maybe one day I will look back at this event and curse myself for not ending the AI threat before it managed to enslave us all…but until then you can find these nifty little guys in Apple stores across the country.

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TheStrangerHAZ

Tech Editor / Gaming Author at Geek Node

Gamer, programmer and pc masterrace-er, my heart has pumped all things digital for longer than I can remember. I firmly believe that if you want to see the best of human ingenuity and passion, you need not look further than your local group of gamers.

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Article Tags: Alpha One Pro · Cruzr · featured · gammatek · JIMU · Programmable bot · Robots · Save John Connor · Service bots · UBTECH

Article Categories: Events