TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - One of the most notable mecha suit animes, Gundam, is set to have its life-sized 18-meter tall version made. One of the engineers involved in the ambitious project is Indonesia’s Pitoyo Hartono.

The professor in the field of artificial neural network recalled that the giant robot will have 24 joints; “There are many movements that can be done. The robots to date generally have 10 - 15 joints,” said Pitoyo to Tempo last weekend.

Pitoyo, from the Department of Mechanics and Information, Chukyo University, Japan, together with project leader in Waseda University’s professor of applied physics Shuji Hashimoto are tasked to create the technology to make the life-size Gundam move.

Furthermore, the professor said that the Gundam’s mainframe will be built out of steel that will be covered by additional parts made in fiber-reinforced plastic. Rough calculations predict the Gundam will have a total weight of 25 tons; “Which is the optimum weight for today’s technology.”

“The difficult parts involve overweight components which can hamper the electronics and control cables. It is also hard to install certain motors and gears due to the sheer unconventional volume of the robot,” said professor Pitoyo.

MOH KHORY ALFARIZI