There is more than meets the eye to the towering robot resembling a character from the "Transformers" movie franchise -- it speaks Vietnamese and is made from spare motorbike parts.

"Hello everyone ... I am from Vietnam," the hulking Robot One says as it swivels side to side in a Hanoi workshop.

A team of IT programmers and students say they want to provoke debate about the scourge of discarded and unused autoparts in a city where nearly six million motorbikes hit the streets daily.

Hanoi officials vowed in 2017 to ban motorbikes from roads by 2030 to ease pollution and congestion woes.

"Our team made this robot in order to send a message to everybody -- let's protect the environment," said newly-graduated engineer Do Danh Phong, a member of the informal Robot Bank group.

Inspired by the feuding robots in director Michael Bay's multibillion dollar "Transformers" franchise, Robot One was cobbled together from the remnants of Japanese Honda and Taiwanese SYM motorbikes.

The 100-kilogram (220-pound) and three-metre (10-foot) high Robot One is controlled by a PlayStation joystick, can make simple moves and utter some basic phrases.

Its creators had to scour shops to pull together the right selection of parts to give it the same muscular frame as the robots in the movie.

Robot One is the first of many, the team says, with dreams of creating a robot park in the capital one day.

lqb-tmh/joe/mtp

HONDA MOTOR

Related Links
All about the robots on Earth and beyond!

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Controlling robots across oceans and space
Paris (ESA) Oct 04, 2019
This Autumn is seeing a number of experiments controlling robots from afar, with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano directing a robot in The Netherlands and engineers in Germany controlling a rover in Canada. Imagine looking down at the Moon from the Gateway as you prepare to land near a lunar base to run experiments, but you know the base needs maintenance work on the life-support system that will take days. It would be better to maintain the base from orbit so the astronauts can get straight to work o ... read more