If you grew up loving the Transformers franchise, you may have dreamed of the day technology would bring your favourite robots to life. Now, a Japanese engineering company has turned that childhood fantasy into a reality, with its 3.5-ton robot that transforms into a car within moments. The Archax, designed by Tsubame Industries, is a 15ft-tall piloted mech able to go from a standing'robot mode' into a streamlined'vehicle mode' with the press of a button. Incredible footage shows a pilot climbing in through the cockpit hatch and manipulating the robot's arms and hands before switching modes and driving off. Tsubame Industries has currently made five of the giant robots and plans to sell them for $3 million (£2.46m) each.

SHIZUOKA – Astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Norishige Kanai on Wednesday visited a factory making models of humanoid robots from the anime series "Mobile Suit Gundam" which are slated to be launched into space. The project is part of an effort by Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizers and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to boost spirits ahead of the games. In the project, a satellite carrying models of Gundam and Zaku, piloted by the main character from the series and his rival, will be launched into space. Noguchi and Kanai visited the Bandai Hobby Center, which creates molds for the models, in the city of Shizuoka. They spoke with factory staff about special materials that can withstand the conditions in space, asking questions such as what happens when radiation and ultraviolet rays hit the models.

Japanese engineer Masaaki Nagumo had always dreamed of operating a robot from "Mobile Suit Gundam." That is the name of a popular Japanese animation television series. It was Nagumo's favorite show when he was a child. Now Nagumo has made the show come to life. He has built a large robot inspired by the machines.

One of the earliest real robot mecha anime of the 80's that defined decades of anime and video games to follow was that of Fang of the Sun Dougram. Now after all these years, Bandai has given us probably the best toy of the titular mecha. Fang of the Sun Dougram was set in the far off future where humanity has colonized various planets outside of our solar system, all of which are run by the Earth Federation. In a coup d'état on the planet Deloyer, the governor is seemingly replaced by a military dictatorship all under the approval of the Federation. The former governor's son, Crinn Cashim, steals a prototype combat armor called the Dougram and with a group of ragtag rebels fights back against this tyranny and in doing so free Deloyer's citizens from martial rule.