As Japan does its best to recover from the energy plant disaster at Fukushima, we took the opportunity to travel to other parts of the country, in this case Hiroshima, where we found what looks to be a solar-powered replica of R2-D2.

Developed by Yosuke Kimura and Daisuke Goto, two electrical systems majors at Hiroshima International University, the radio controlled homage to the Star Wars robot includes two shoulder-mounted solar panels that would conceivably power the droid when its normal energy supply runs down. The robot was recently on display in downtown Hiroshima, Japan as an example of the university's engineering program.