Evolta Robot to compete in Ironman Triathlon

Panasonic’s Evolta robot, The adorable robot is the size of our hand and will be embarking on the 230-kilometer-long Ironman Triathlon course in Hawaii starting on October 24.

The Evolta will have three different bodies and three rechargeable batteries for the swimming, cycling, and running portions of the race. The robot is about one-tenth the height of a grown man, so he’s getting 10 times longer to finish the race than a normal person. The 20-inch Evolta will have 168 hours to complete the course.

This isn’t the first physical test of endurance the tiny humanoid has attempted. Back in September of 2010 the Evolta trekked over 300 miles across Japan from Tokyo to Kyoto. Before that, the Evolta rode a miniature tricycle in the 24-hour-long Le Mans race, normally raced by sports cars, which set a Guinness world record for the greatest distance traveled by a remote-controlled car. And back in May of 2008, the adorable little robot climbed the more than 1,700 vertical feet of the Grand Canyon in nearly 7 hours.

This is the first time the Evolta will be swimming instead of pedaling or running, and creating a version of the robot that was waterproof and mold-proof was not an easy task. However, the robot’s creator, Tomotaka Takahashi was able to create a version that could be mounted on a fin-like blade. As you can see in the video below, with his arms stretched out, the little robot whizzes through the water.

The Evolta robot was originally created to promote Panasonic’s EVOLTA AA cell batteries. The triathlon version of the Evolta will use rechargeable AA batteries that can be recharged up to 1,800 times by being placed on a recharger pad. If the Evolta is successful, Panasonic officials are hoping it could convince customers that the quality of its batteries is top notch. The rechargeable batteries go on sale in Japan on October 21.