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 Owners Manual Request

Colin wrote in looking for the latest Robosapien V2 robot owners manual. It turns out that WowWee has upgraded their support/product pages since the last time we visited their site, making it very easy to locate the correct robot manual he needed.

WowWee Spyball Looks Very Promising (Video)

We’re probably the #1 fan of the WowWee Rovio mobile videocam robot, so you can easily imagine how we can hardly wait to get it’s younger brother ? the Spyball robot that WowWee unveiled at CES 2009 about a week ago. While the Spyball is smaller, and cheaper, than Rovio, it should open up some new, exciting videocam applications.

Femisapien Robot a Big Dance Hit (Video)

We have to admit that we were skeptical when WowWee targeted the Femisapien robot at young girls. But, after seeing what the Milford School pupils were able to accomplish with their Femisapiens, and how enthusiastic they are, we confess we were wrong (video below). WowWee’s marketing strategy for the Femisapien just might be right on target.

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

 

Robot Sightings: Homeless Robot, Widening Robot Gap, Crabfu Challenge, and more...

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

• 20:27 How many servos does it take to make a walking humanoid robot? How about 2...? tinyurl.com/69xrmv
• 20:40 If you're going to have robot soccer games and robot battles, you have to have cheerleaders! tinyurl.com/6gtfr2
• 22:17 The Tsukuba Real World Challenge was like the Darpa Challenge only on sidewalks with real people: tinyurl.com/tsukubachallenge
• 05:54 The "robot gap" widens and isn't expected to slow down. tinyurl.com/robot-gap Notice that China and India don't make the top 10.
• 06:42 Homeless UK robot will work for food (tinyurl.com/6aranj), or at least his animator will.
• 08:40 Long before the Terminator or Gort, there was "Tik-Tok of Oz" (1914) and "The Clockwork Man" (1923) tinyurl.com/old-stories
• 08:46 I-Wei needs a new challenge for Crabfu Steamworks, so we thought this 1865 creation would do the trick tinyurl.com/crabfu-challenge
• 09:23 It's not Wall-E, but this mobile robotic arm built using 3 mm signboard and superglue comes close. tinyurl.com/pseudo-wall-e
• 10:47 What do robot loving Australian media consultants do in their spare time? They make Robot Wars videos tinyurl.com/robosapien-wars
• 11:10 The MarvelMind Grumbler robot (tinyurl.com/grumbler-alive) looked really hot, but no website or blog updates in a long, long time...
• 13:07 See the world through the other person's eyes. A simple concept, that some never learn... tinyurl.com/6jju4v
• 13:11 Thanks to the Wizard of Oz, the Tinman got his heart... but what happened next? tinyurl.com/2x83db
• 19:36 Spykee and Rovio duke it out. (tinyurl.com/spykee-vs-rovio) We understand the verdict is being appealed due to cheating by one bot.

Robotically posted for Lem by LoudTwitter

Robot Sightings: Dr. Robot tutorial, Sugiura is an Indian God, Jonas and the Stupid Robot, and more...

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

• 20:16 Tsukumo Robot Kingdom is open for business again after a breif shutdown. tinyurl.com/6pd6gd
• 20:31 Indian robot builders join ROBO-ONE 14 & learn from Sugiura-san (Dynamizer): blog.acyut.com/?p=73. They call him "legendary" & "GOD".
• 20:37 Dr. Robot teaches us how to build a sumo robot from hell: tinyurl.com/6zqggt Definitely got to buy him a new shirt.
• 20:59 We love Star Wars, but isn't making R2D2 into a toilet paper holder going too far? tinyurl.com/54wjlu
• 21:10 With only 256 MB this robot USB memory stick is impractical. tinyurl.com/6y9j39 So, why do I want one?
• 21:22 Jonas challenges the BakaRobo (Stupid Robot) contest, and gets slapped in the process. tinyurl.com/5m44wc
• 21:29 Basquash! Yet another robot movie I'll be putting on my "must-see" list. tinyurl.com/5l72xc
• 21:45 ATR is mapping human brain patterns into visual images: tinyurl.com/5nlmbt
• 21:48 Sangatsu Usagi's great report on the 29th Micromouse Competition: tinyurl.com/6xzhfn
• 23:37 With auto companies in trouble, and Honda dropping F-1, will other research, like Honda's robot legs, survive? htinyurl.com/69ngeb
• 08:51 John published a good, though troubling, study on robot hobby trends (tinyurl.com/robothobbytrends). Let's hope it's only temporary.
• 09:05 The Vex robot system has taken off like wildfire (tinyurl.com/vex-robot-competitions). What makes it so popular with schools?
• 09:15 For robot fans that don't want to build from scratch, PicONE released a cool micromouse robot kit. tinyurl.com/54pw94
• 10:20 Thanks to a reminder from Martin, here's one of the best robot resources around www.robot.org.uk/ even if it doesn't have a RD link.
• 10:25 Robert's next RoboDance version will be out next Spring and will even control the kitchen sink! tinyurl.com/robodance-specs
• 12:12 The Kyosho MANOI robots aren't drawing much attention overseas, but here in Japan they are still hot stuff! tinyurl.com/kyosho-manoi
• 12:26 RT Corp has an under-1 kg. humanoid robot competition scheduled for January 18th starting at 2:00 pm. www.rt-shop.jp/blog/?p=126
• 12:49 140 year old head for a smoking robot automaton (tinyurl.com/smoking-robot-head). Pretty spooky - looks very "Stephen King" style.
• 13:20 Daniel Ruben Rojas sent us a video of this blazingly fast line-follower robot: tinyurl.com/blazing-line-follower-robot running at 80%

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.

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.