Explore Topics:
AIBiotechnologyRoboticsComputingFutureScienceSpaceEnergyTech
Robotics

The Transformer You’ve Always Dreamed Of Is Here

Peter Murray
Jun 13, 2012

Share

A second ago that robot was a slick Lamborghini.

Man, where the heck was this when I was a kid? The Transformers I played with were die cast metal figurines that I posed, providing the “err-arr-errnght!” transforming sounds myself. Now there’s an RC robot that transforms from its Lamborghini-esque form into a robot, throws a few punches in the (you'll imagine) Deceptacons’ direction, walks, and can even form a victory dance because it has been crowned most awesomest toy ever.

And you can drive it around too because, you know, it’s an RC.

The RC Transformer was developed by Kenji Ishida of JS Robotics. Apparently this is the eighth version of the robot that he’s been building in his living room, according to Herald Sun. Sorry to disappoint, but the robot’s not commercially available just yet. Ishida is already working on version nine, but hopefully he realizes soon that he’s already fulfilled our wildest Transformer fantasies (Megan Fox considerations aside). And technical details are scarce too, amounting to the single fact that it has 22 servos.

Ishida had originally planned on building a robot to enter into “robotic slugfests,” which I’m guessing would be ROBO-ONE. From what I’ve seen the tourney is more about Rock Em’ Sock Em’ boxing. Not sure, but it might be cheating to transform into a sweet red Lamborghini and run robotic chumps over.

Be Part of the Future

Sign up to receive top stories about groundbreaking technologies and visionary thinkers from SingularityHub.

100% Free. No Spam. Unsubscribe any time.

However, it is never cheating to be totally awesome.

Peter Murray was born in Boston in 1973. He earned a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore studying gene expression in the neocortex. Following his dissertation work he spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at the same university studying brain mechanisms of pain and motor control. He completed a collection of short stories in 2010 and has been writing for Singularity Hub since March 2011.

Related Articles

Characters from the video game minecraft

DeepMind’s New AI Teaches Itself to Play Minecraft From Scratch

Shelly Fan
A 3D digiral render of a colorful, brain-like structure

What Anthropic Researchers Found After Reading Claude’s ‘Mind’ Surprised Them

Edd Gent
These Tiny Liquid Robots Merge and Split Like ‘Terminator’

These Tiny Liquid Robots Merge and Split Like ‘Terminator’

Shelly Fan
Characters from the video game minecraft
Artificial Intelligence

DeepMind’s New AI Teaches Itself to Play Minecraft From Scratch

Shelly Fan
A 3D digiral render of a colorful, brain-like structure
Artificial Intelligence

What Anthropic Researchers Found After Reading Claude’s ‘Mind’ Surprised Them

Edd Gent
These Tiny Liquid Robots Merge and Split Like ‘Terminator’
Robotics

These Tiny Liquid Robots Merge and Split Like ‘Terminator’

Shelly Fan

What we’re reading

Be Part of the Future

Sign up to receive top stories about groundbreaking technologies and visionary thinkers from SingularityHub.

100% Free. No Spam. Unsubscribe any time.

SingularityHub chronicles the technological frontier with coverage of the breakthroughs, players, and issues shaping the future.

Follow Us On Social

About

  • About Hub
  • About Singularity

Get in Touch

  • Contact Us
  • Pitch Us
  • Brand Partnerships

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
© 2025 Singularity