ROBOTS DREAMS - Robot news and robot hacks from a true robot geek

Femisapien/EMA: A Great Robot Concept Still Waiting For Success

Every robot designer loves their own creations, at least at the beginning, and they often find it difficult to understand why other people aren’t as enraptured with the beauty and wonder of the robot they gave birth to. Still, at the end of the day the bottom line is to create products that customers relate to enough that they feel compelled to open their wallets and give us their hard earned cash or plastic.

If we’re really lucky, and really creative, then we can repeat the process over and over again, using the profits from this product generation to build the next one. And, our customers will be so delighted with our products that they will automatically come back to buy more and more.

Robo-IRT Makes Controlling the i-SOBOT a Breeze

As much as we’re devoted to the larger humanoid robots, we have to admit that they’re a bit expensive. At the same time, we love the lower cost robots like the TOMY i-SOBOT and the WowWee Robosapien types. But their remote controls are frequently complex and difficult to use, and editing a robot program usually turns out to be an exercise in frustration.

The best way to get around the remote control/programability challenge has been the free RoboDance software application. It’s loaded with great functionality and is extremely easy to use, even for a pure novice. It’s only drawback has been that you have to purchase a special IR transmitter to send the software commands to your robot. Thankfully a new, low cost transmitter, appropriately named “Robo-IRT” has hit the market.

Robot Sightings: Heavy Duty Hexapod, Tilden Expounds, Robot Farmhands, and more...

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 00:04 We've seen lots of hexapod robots, but it's rare to find one to ride (tinyurl.com/heavy-duty-hexapod-robot) plus build instructions.
• 00:30 Robot farmhands pamper cows - tinyurl.com/farm-robots
• 01:32 Wired magazine gets down and dirty with one of the Roomba robots: (tinyurl.com/wired-reviews-roomba)
• 08:02 Robots podcast has a toy episode featuring Mark Tilden of Robosapien, Femisapien, and Rovio fame tinyurl.com/robot-podcast-tilden
• 08:05 Thanks to Alex we're able to share the funny robot sign posted by Trossen (tinyurl.com/trossens-funny-robot-sign)
• 08:12 Jes1510 over at the Trossen forums shared a useful article on cutting polycarbonate plastic (tinyurl.com/polycarbonate-cutting)

Robotically posted for Lem by LoudTwitter

 

The Happy Couple... of Robots

Well, it looks like Christmas came a little early, at least for this robot loving home. The happy robot couple pictured above joined our collection a few days ago, and we've been having an absolute blast exploring their features and foibles. Needless to say, we'll be posting some detailed reports and videos featuring both the Tri-Bot and Femisapien robots from WowWee.

EMA Female Robot Way Overpriced Here

EMA (Eternal Maiden Actualization), the female "Femisapien" robot designed by WowWee and marketed in Japan by Sega Toys, it ready to hit stores here next month. According to the local Amazon website, he surprisingly agile humanoid robot will go on sale September 25, and is priced at 18,900 yen - or slightly under USD$200. While we understand the need for some price premium due to changes to meet local safety requirements and documentation localization, Sega seems to have gone way overboard with EMA's pricing. The same WowWee robot, named the Femisapien outside of Japan, can be easily purchased for under USD$80.

About a week ago, we had the chance to play with one of the EMA robots on display at a big electronics superstore, and were very impressed. Its mobility and design were quite a bit better than we imagined. It would make a perfect addition to our collection of robot humanoids, but not at over double the US price. As much as the Japanese public loves, and goes bananas for robots, EMA isn't likely to pick up many fans here, outside of the small circle of robot fans that have seemingly unlimited budgets and credit cards.

Robot Lion Skinned and Autopsied

Dedicated robot hackers are never content to leave well enough alone. They feel compelled to dissect, hack, and mod any semi-defenseless piece of electronics that will hold still long enough for them to crack it open. For them, that's when the real fun begins.

Grandlarseny37, over on the Robocommunity forums, certainly feels that way. They just posted Part 1 of a multi-part Dissection of the WowWee Alive Lion Cub. So far, the helpless cub has been skinned, had its tail pulled, and was subjected to other indignities. Part 2 is promised to be 'Coming Soon'...

Many thanks to Robert for alerting us.

Severe Robot Induced Flashback! (Video)

When we received Robert Oschler's review of the new Femisapien robot (see video below) from WowWee there was an immediate, and overwhelming sense of flashback to the 1960's, but we couldn't quite figure out why. Then, late last night, when we should have been sleeping, it suddenly hit us. Robert's passionate devotion to robots in general, and specifically to WowWee white plastic humanoids brought back memories of the late Frank Zappa (think Mothers of Invention). Robert's obsession was captured perfectly, more than 40 years in advance - probably before Robert was even born, by Zappa in his classic song "WOWIE ZOWIE".

"Wowie Zowie
Your love's a treat
Wowie Zowie
You can't be beat
Wowie Zowie, baby
You're so neat
I don't even care
If you shave your legs

Wowie Zowie, baby
You're so fine
Wowie Zowie, baby
Please be mine
Wowie Zowie
Up and down my spine
I don't even care
If you brush your teeth"
 

So, from here on out, we have dubbed Robert with the title of "Wowie Zowie", and challenge him to create an appropriate, and totally over the top, parody music video.

The Robot Sleeps Tonight (Video)

A couple years ago, when the original Robosapien robot, created by Mark Tilden, went on sale, there were no third party products. Actually, at that point, no one outside of the WowWee Robotics labs knew enough about the robot to even begin hacking it, or creating new software and accessories for it.

We bought one, and are very glad we did. Figuring out how to control it from our PC was a significant challenge that taught us a lot, though we wouldn't want to try doing it from scratch again. Fortunately now there are several million of the popular Robosapien robots out there, along with other robots in the series, like the RoboRaptor, and RoboPet. And, there are a number of third party solutions for Robosapien fans and addicts to chose from.

Santa Must Have Delivered A Lot Of Robots (Video)

Christmas has come and gone, but from the number of video clips showing up on popular video sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video, Santa's sleigh must have been totally overloaded with the popular Roboreptile robots from WowWee. A quick search on YouTube turned up numerous videos including one that featured a baby teething on the robot, another one where it scares the heck out of a cat and dog, yet another with it trying to climb on top of a floor vacuum, and lots of others.

Our favorite video of the bunch (see below), at least so far, has the robot exploring an office area, attempting to mate with a door, getting its head stuck between a door and the door jam, and then attacking a computer like there's no tomorrow.

Amazon Runs An Amazing 70% Roboreptile Robot Discount Christmas Special

We have no idea how long Amazon will be running this last minute Christmas special, but one of their December 22nd "Friday Sale" promotional items is a 70% discount on the extremely popular WowWee RoboReptile robot. We just checked out their website, and they claim to have the product in stock and that they can deliver.

Many thanks to Robert at RobotsRule for the heads-up.