The science nerds have been promising to build us some awesome robots for years, but so far all they’ve given us is that robot dog thing that Sony released about five years ago and then quicky pulled from the market when they realised that nobody wanted to pay a couple of grand for a toy dog that was only interesting for about half an hour. All that’s changed now - there are plenty of cool robots on the market, and you won’t need a second mortgage to buy them.

I-Sobot
Standing just 6.5 inches tall, I-Sobot isn’t likely to be much use when the robot uprising threatens to crush humanity, since it could be easily easily defeated with a gentle slap from a four year old - but on the other hand it does know how to play air-guitar, which is pretty cool. It has 200 pre-programmed moves and can be controlled by your voice or a remote, but it doesn’t have any kind of artificial intelligence to enable it to do anything interesting by itself. More info at the Amazon page for I-Sobot

Robosapien V2
Version two of the original bi-pedal bad-ass comes with much more sophisticated motion capabilities and now stands at two-feet tall, so it’s more than capable of giving the I-Sobot a good kicking. This version also features improved vision with colour recognition allowing it to find objects and play games. It features a range of autonomous behaviours, including a free-roam mode which allows it to explore its environment without being controlled. More info at the Amazon page for Robosapien V2

Lego NXT Robot Kit
Lego + Robot = WIN! Actually, the robot is just one of the things you can build with this Lego robot kit, but the real question is: why would you want to build anything else? This is definitely one for the alpha-geeks, since the robot kit is based around the Lego NXT Intelligent Brick and is highly programmable, so you can pretty much make the thing do anything you want. If you can be bothered to read the manual. More info at the Amazon page for LEGO 8527: Mindstorms NXT

Roboquad
This freaky alien robot spider can chase moving objects, which means its great for scaring the living shit out of pets and small children. Roboquad can be fully remote controlled, or you can set it to an autonomous mode to let it interact with its environment with no user input. Also, it dances, but who cares about that when you can make the thing chase your neighbour’s cat around the garden? More details on the Amazon RoboQuad page.

Meccano Spykee
Spykee is a build it yourself robot kit that also functions as a roaming, remotely controlled home security spy-robot. The robot features a built in web-cam and can be controlled from your PC, or even over the internet via a WiFi connection, and it can also act as a Skype phone using built in speakers and a microphone. We’re not quite sure why you’d want to do that, but whatever. More info at the Amazon page for Meccano Spykee

Roboraptor
Until somebody invents a robotic ninja-pirate-monkey, this robot dinosaur is pretty much the coolest toy money can buy. It can be set to different ‘moods’ such as Agressive or Playful, which influence its behaviour, and you can leave it on guard mode in your house to terrify elderly relatives when they come to visit this Christmas. More details at the Amazon Roboraptor page.