Designed by a NASA scientists, the Robosapien is simple enough for kids and advanced enough for adults. It is based on the science of applied biomorphic robotics.
Robosapien is fully functional right out of the box, requiring no complex set up. All functions are handled by the remote control and no computer is required. It provides more than six hours of continuous entertainment and he automatically shuts down after he has been idle for more than 20 minutes.
Walks forward and backward, leans over in four directions, and can lift bulky items and pieces of paper alike. Best of all, his movements look natural and are quiet. This attribute separates Robosapien from less sophisticated entertainment robots on the market. Robosapien's impressive flexibility is evident as he walks in two different speeds, dances and easily handles 180 degree turns.
Robosapien has touch sensors on his hands, on front and back of both his feet and a sound sensor. This means you could program your Robosapien to walk forward until it bumps into something.
His right hand is for picking up round or bulky objects like balls, cardboard tubes, etc. His left hand is for thin things like pencils, napkins, dollar bills, business cards, and paper.
He also has lights in the center of his hands, which allows him to illuminate the area on the floor when he goes to pick something up - a very cool effect.
Robosapien is controlled via infrared remote control to send commands to the IR receiver in the dome on his head.
Within days of release, Robosapien owners all over the world were pulling it apart to see what could be done. So far some great projects have sprung up including:
- Wireless Cameras - A user has installed a miniature cam into the bot, pavin the way for some machine vision apps.
- Autonomous Control - The University of Freiburg has made created a fully autonomous Robosapien by doing some extreme hacking and performing a pocket-pc brain transplant.
- Computer Control - Some quick research has produced the infra-red controller codes, opening the way for Robosapiens to be controlled from computers, custom remotes, or even PDAs!
- Sequence Programmers - Quite a few tools are being created to make it easier to program the Robosapien.
Worse than V1
(epinions)
rating: 3.0
