Neurotrash

Giant Robot Attack!
The Future is Here...Maybe...Sort Of...

So, apparently, anime geeks and robot kit-bashers are hard at work dragging us kicking and screaming into the mecha age.
Who knew? I don't watch enough Gundam, I guess. Or subscribe to Popular Mechanics. Thankfully, the nice people at the Vestal Design Blog keep up on that kind of tech.
The folks at Neogentronyx, a wildly futuristic sounding name for a company that is essentially a lone engineer working in his back yard, have photos and video of his NMX04-1A (because all robots should have a cool numeric designation instead of being named Robby or Maria or Locutus) over at their website. This particular model of mecha is designed primarily for sport -- the sport being gladiatorial mecha combat in an arena. Not that there's a league yet, but apparently they're anticipating the imminent formation of one.

Then, apparently, the Japanese are also working on this technology from a more practical military standpoint, even though the Sakakibara Kikai Co mecha only fires foam balls. They also have a website. though good luck getting it to load (I couldn't).
I honestly had no idea that someone would want to even consider building something like this. Giant robots seem...sorta impractical to me. I guess I'm either too old school or not a big enough fanboy.