image via Pink Tentacle’s excellent slideshow

At the International Robot Exhibition (iREX) 2009 in Japan last week, dancing, rolling and talking robots and their creators mingled and played. I was enjoyed a stuffed poultry dish at home myself, but I did come across these cool videos of demos at the conference, including this one of robots doing a light saber dance:

Other exhibits included these dancing robots, balancing on one foot:

An adorable robot that seems much more fun than the mechanical claw in the prize box:

And finally, a good overview of a few different robotic technologies at iREX 2009 by NetworkWorld.TV: