Naoki Maru has years of experience building robots, so it’s no surprise to see him add Kinect-style motion capture to his creations. His robot, King Kizer, is a regular champion in Japan’s Robo-One boxing matches, and now he’s demonstrated an experimental version to attendees of a robot festival in Osaka. After seeing the boxing robot Atom in the movie Real Steel, Maru replaced the control harness used in previous iterations with an Asus Xtion Pro Live sensor similar to the Kinect. The sensor captures the motions of his son, which are then transmitted to the child-sized bot.
King Kizer boxing robot emulates ‘Real Steel’ with Kinect-like motion controls
Robot hobbyist Naoki Maru, whose King Kizer fighting robot has one several Robo-One championships, has created a version of the robot that can mimic the motion of his son using a Kinect-like sensor.
Robot hobbyist Naoki Maru, whose King Kizer fighting robot has one several Robo-One championships, has created a version of the robot that can mimic the motion of his son using a Kinect-like sensor.
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
Besides removing the harness from the equation, this new scheme lets the robot mimic the younger Maru’s whole body, bending its knees or throwing a punch. Previous versions of King Kizer used a remote control for leg movements. There are still a couple of seconds of latency, so we’re not sure how it would fare against more traditional fighting bots, but the video below is still pretty impressive.
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