Wakamaru Joins Ancient Osaka Festival
July 15th, 2009
Wakamaru, that cute little jack of all trades bot can add yet another thing to his list of accomplishments. The yellow robot is being prepared for participation in the dramatic Osaka Tenjin Festival, an enormous 1000-year-old event that runs through the streets and rivers of Osaka each July. Wakamaru is a high-tech android designed for domestic and office work by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and if you’ve been following along, you’ll know he’s a busy robot who has taken on acting, been controlled by a controller suit and he has even blogged.
For this engagement he will be dressed up in a fancy costume and the engineers are teaching the robot how to perform the Osaka-jime, the festival’s customary call and clap. Wakamaru, who will play cheerleader during the festival’s boat parade on the Okawa River on July 25 and will act as a modern-day omukae ningyo (”greeting doll”).
