No, it’s not a hamster, but it’s close. . .

Artistic Rendering of Future Yuki-Taro innovation

Those wacky kids down at the Niigata Industrial Creation Organization (NICO), Research and Development, Inc. (RDI), Niigata Institute of Technology, Yamagata University and the Industrial Research Institute of Niigata Prefecture (IRI) have created a nifty critter that addresses the problem of necessary heavy labor for the elderly.

Niigata gets a ton of snow during the winter, and we”ll bet that it’s not just the elderly that are getting a kick out of this thing.

It’s gone and won a spiffy design award, even!

The friendly-looking Yuki-taro measures 160 x 95 x 75 cm (63 x 37 x 30 in.) and weighs 400 kg (880 lbs). Armed with GPS and a pair of video cameras embedded in its eyes, the self-guided robot seeks out snow and gobbles it up into its large mouth.

Yuki-taro’s insides consist of a system that compresses the snow into hard blocks measuring 60 x 30 x 15 cm (24 x 12 x 6 in.), which Yuki-taro expels from its rear end.

The blocks can then be stacked and stored until summer, when they can be used as an alternative source of refrigeration or cooling.

So it’s not just a snow collector, it’s a fabulous way to make sure you can keep the sake cold during those blisteringly humid Japanese summers too!

GAWD that’s efficient.

It’s also waaaay more kawaii than any snowblower:

Yuki-taro
in recognition of your unfailing dedication to human quality of life
(summer and winter)
Suicidebots declares you

COOL ROBOT OF THE WEEK

May rock salt never corrode your suspension.

[From Pink Tentacle. Thank you Alexander Rose and Amybean!]

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Asia Kicks Our Ass, Cool Robot of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.