The Evolta robot from Panasonic will be taking part in one of the most challenging contests, Evolta World Challenge IV, which will be an acid test to the durability and performance of its EVOLTA rechargeable batteries.
EVOLTA Robot (Bike). Credit: Business Wire
The Evolta robots have been designed to finish successfully an Ironman Triathlon Course ranging 230 km on Hawaii Island. The Ironman course is known as one of the toughest courses of all. There will be three robots taking part in the challenge; each one will be doing one of the tasks. The tasks include swimming, biking and running on the course and the robots will have to accomplish each of the tasks powered by just three Evolta AA size rechargeable batteries.
The Evolta World Challenge IV is scheduled to be held on October 23 at Hawaii. The final goal of the challenge is to reach the finish line within one week (or 168 h) by travelling a distance of 230 km. The distance will have to be covered by running non-stop for 24 h, which does not include the time taken for recharging. It is to be noted that Evolta robot has been successful in covering the Grand Canyon powered by Panasonic AA dry batteries in the year 2008 and has also entered the Guinness Book of Records by driving around Le Mans non-stop for 24 h. A recent feat achieved by the robot was to complete a 500 km walk from Tokyo to Kyoto by being powered only by 12 AA Evolta rechargeable batteries.
Tomotaka Takashi who is known as the creator of the first robots in Japan and the founder of the ROBO-GARAGE regards the challenge as one of the toughest that the Evolta Robot has faced so far. He further added that the contest was made tough by the fact that robot will have to take on three different tasks through the challenge and be on the move day and night and reach the finish line within 168 hours.
Source: http://panasonic.net/