Gizmodo: mecha

Mecha Bot from James Cameron's Upcoming Avatar Makes Appearance at E3 Expo

Adrian Covert — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:30:00 EDT

Collider has images of what is said to be a "heavy lifter" which will appear in the upcoming James Cameron sci-fi epic Avatar. It basically looks like a generic, mecha, but it's something, right?

The statue/model/robot is on display at E3 outside Ubisoft's booth for the corresponding video game which will release alongside the film. Up until now, specific details and visuals from the film have been pretty scarce.

For those unfamiliar, Avatar is a 3D film set to take place in the 22nd century. The basic premise is that humans visit a distant moon full of giant blue aliens using genetically engineered "avatars" that they mentally inhabit (I'm not making this up). Cameron says the film was inspired by all the sci-fi books he read as a child.

If anything, the movie will be interesting. For now, feast on the images, and be sure to check out more over at [Collider]

The Revenge of the Lego Turkey Mecha

Jesus Diaz — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST

You are probably still eating the corpse remains of the 47.5-ton turkey your mom did for Thanksgiving. Which is cool. Unless the brother of that turkey has access to bricks and constructs a weaponized Lego Turkey Mecha to wipe your fat turkey-eating ass out of the face of this planet. This thing seems deceptively inoffensive until you activate the attack mode and it transforms into the amazingly complex beast of destruction and feathered apocalypse that it really is, full of missiles, lasers, and doom-thingie launchers:

It includes:

• A pair of MK4 Torg Class Laser cannons
• A MK5 Oasis Class Hyperdiscombobulator
• A Flare launcher
• A Scorpion Missile Pod, with 9 missiles

Thank God, you don't have to fear this unless you are actually a turkey-eating minifig. [Brickfrenzy via Brothers Brick]

Massive Lego Mecha Can Probably Kill Humans, then Drink Ten Packs of Good Ole Fortran

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:00:00 EDT

This is what you get when you combine Lego and massive mechas done at the minifig scale: the biggest robotic overlord I've laid my eyes on. Then, when you go through the massive gallery, you get what I call a robner followed by a brickgasm. Updated: actually, reader/brother Oscar sends me pictures of a huge ~~Bionicle~~ Exoforce mecha he saw last weekend, which looks even bigger.

The gigantic model won the Best Mecha award at last weekend BrickFair. And talking about minifigs, did I mention we have a video contest going? Yeah, that's what I thought. Carry on.

However, the first one looks a lot bigger and definitely better. [Flickr via Brothers Brick]

Lifesize Scopedog Mecha Towers Over Iron and Steel Celebration

Elaine Chow — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EDT

As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation got ironsmithing genius Kogoro Kurata to display his insane 1:1 scale model of the Scopedog mecha from the 80s anime series VOTOMS. Weighing in at two tons and standing a full four meters tall, it dwarfed everything else at the exhibition. The cast iron structure was actually finished in 2005 and has been on display before at other Japanese conventions, but it still thrills every time it rears its mechanical head. Look at the detail on this thing!

In VOTOMS, the Scopedog is a military all-purpose unit— a mass-produced combat vehicle that can fit a single pilot. In an interview with PingMag, Kogoro said that he built the entire structure out of iron mainly to prove that it was possible. The project ended up taking a year, because he broke a bone while working on it. [Robot Watch Japan via TechEBlog

Toshiba 815T PB: Transformers-Like Cellphone of Geeky dreams

Kit Eaton — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:22:20 EST

Toshiba's new Softbank 815T PB is the robot/cellphone hybrid I would've dreamed of if cellphones had been around when I was a kid. It's made for an upcoming Japanese TV drama called Ketai Sousakan 7 and it really does transform, Transformers-like, into a robot toy complete with tiny bunched fists. Even the display-face is part of the robot effect, and the phone comes with games with the same theme. It's in silver and black, has a QVGA screen, 3.2 megapixel camera and is a 3G phone, so it might venture outside Japanese shores. We don't know much else other than an April release date, but we'll keep you posted. [Gizmodo Japan]

Japan: WTF, yo? Part Deux

johnb — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:12:40 EDT

Ok. First mushrooms that sing like the murmuring waters, now a mecha with a huge dick. It seems like every couple of months you get a rash of these strange images from Japan and you kind of wonder if most of the time the citizens of Japan are hanging out doing normal stuff and then all of a sudden they all go crazy over there and dress up like Sailor Moon and build robot dongs.

Can anyone translate this?

Some Page [Geocities]