Developed at Sakakibara Kikai, a maker of farming machinery, LW-Mononofu is an 8.5-meter (28-feet) tall, two-legged robot weighing in at more than 7 tonnes. It contains a cockpit with monitors and levers for the pilot to control the robot’s arms and legs.
Sakakibara Kikai has developed other robots and amusement machines alongside its main agriculture equipment business and rents them out for about 100,000 yen ($930) an hour, for kids’ birthday parties and other entertainment, he said.
The company has created robots as varied as the 3.4-metre tall Landwalker, the smaller Kid’s Walker Cyclops and the MechBoxer boxing machine - but the mighty Mononofu towers over them all and executes more complex movements.
It can move its fingers and turn its upper body, and walk forward and backward. It is no speedster, however, moving at less than 1 km per hour.
But what it lacks in pace, it makes up for with power: the bazooka-like air gun on its right arm shoots sponge balls at around 140 kph (87 miles per hour).
Mononofu, however, might be a bit too large: it is unable to leave the factory without being dismantled because it was built taller than the entrance.
