At this year’s Maker Faire Tokyo 2012 held over the weekend about 250 exhibitors participated in the two-day DIY event. The event was held at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, and it attracted around 9,000 visitors made up of families with small children to geeks of all ages. The fair’s main attraction was undoubtedly Kuratas — a 4-meter tall, 4-legged gigantic robot whose movements can be controlled by a person from a cockpit seat, just like the fictional robots in anime such as Gundam. The robot was first introduced at a public event in July and till this day is creating a buzz among robot fans around the world.
Other innovative exhibits included a touch-panel that could make taking a bath more fun. Shigeyuki Hirai, an associate professor at Kyoto Sangyo University and his team created the bathtub touch-panel by installing sensors in the side of the tub, which users can use for bath-specific apps, icons and buttons that are projected on to the surface of the bath from a device installed above. Many parents in Japan tell their kids to count to 30 before they get out of the bathtub: By using a specially designed bathtub-app kids can use a touch-sensitive button to start a digital display of numerals that counts up to 30 accompanied by a voice.
