Evolution

The Honda Collection Hall is quite a ways from Tokyo, but its assembly of classic cars, motorcycles, race cars, and robots made the trip worth it.

On the first floor of the museum there is a complete collection of robots that Honda has created for research purposes over the years. Its easy to look Honda's most recent robot, Asimo and be disappointed. Its not the robot we were all promised. While it can walk around, it really cannot interact with and serve us. 

However looking at the complete collection of Honda's robots allows you to see what it took to get to Asimo. 

The project began with a the creation of a simple pair of legs (below and left) in the 1980's. In order for the legs to walk, they had to be plugged into an huge computer. As you can see Honda then began to work their way up to a self contained unit.   

Each time the unit began to get smaller, new functions were added and the unit would increase in size again.

Finally Honda worked to incorporate arms and hands into the robot. While it is hard to see in the picture below, the first set of hands were really more like claws.

Finally Honda was able to decrease the size again. From there they worked their down to Asimo. Seeing this collection, its amazing to think that it took 30 years just to design, test, and produce a robot that could actually fit and function safely alongside humans.

Today Honda seems to be perfecting the software that runs Asimo; getting the little robot better at recognizing the world around it. While it may be another 30 year before Asimo is actually able to perform in the real world, someday a robot and its kid are going to come here to see where they came from.

Maybe in 10,000 years after all the humans are gone, the robots will wondering what the great programmer in the sky looks like. Something tells me they will never figure out it was a succession of sweaty young nerds intent on making science fiction reality.

 Tochigi, Japan