Speecys' fuel-cell powered robot

Japanese firm Speecys has had an eponymously-named robot out in kit form for a while now, but they've just announced an update that creates what they claim is the world's first fuel-cell powered bipedal robot. The Speecys-FC comes in a little taller and heavier than its 50-cm, 3.7kg predecessor, and also gets a hefty kick up in price, to Y2.62 million ($24,000) from Y500,000 ($4,500). We wish we could say it does something cooler than walking around and being powered by hydrogen, but unfortunately that's about it. The hydrogen is fed to the fuel cells from a 16-mL tank in the robot's head, though, so you know what to shoot at should it ever get delusions about world domination.

[giantsloths @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

16 litres sounds very big to fit in the head of 3.7 kg robot.

[J @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

Kaboom!

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

Kaboom!

[Ben Dash @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

16 litres? In its head? That has to be a mistake. How much "slightly larger" that 50cm is this thing?

[JDH @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

Come on, how hard can it be to mount a surface-to-air missile or some sort of death ray? A robot just isn't a robot unless it's armed, I say.

[Jonathan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

I'm guessing that's supposed to be milliliters.

[ArC @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

What, no one's made the 'energon' joke yet?

[Scott @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

It's 16 LITRES. The hydrogen-absorbing alloy used for fuel storage allows the volume occupied by the hydrogen to be greatly reduced. See here for a brief overview:

http://www.aist.go.jp/NIMC/recent/r00-05-22-1e.htm