Move aside, Honda's robot...

With a low personal budget, a Chinaman can make good robots! If I were Honda's boss, I would recruit him to build cheap robots as rickshawmen, for a start.

Chinese Farmer Builds Robot Army
A Chinese farmer with very little education has built 26 robots over the past 30 years. His love and obvious talent for technology has inspired him to design these robots and build them literally from scrap materials.Wu Yulu, 46, has been thinking about building robots from the time he was eleven years of age. While sitting on his doorstep watching villagers pass by, he came up with the idea of building a machine that walks like a man.

His first robot took several years to build and could only shuffle along as it could not raise its legs. Over time, his designs became more complex and his creations are now capable of scaling walls, serving water, lighting cigarettes, playing musical instruments and writing calligraphy!

Wu's home is near Beijing and he has plunged his family into debt by spending up to two-thirds of his monthly income on his robot creations. He has been forced to sell some of them to pay bills.

Wu considers all the robots as his sons, and has names for them according to the order in which they were invented, ranging from Wu No.1 to Wu No.26.

"They are all my sons, so they must bear my surname" said Wu. His last comment was so unlike the Michelin Man!