Robosapien
The Robosapien is an electronic toy that was developed by NASA robotics physicist Mark W. Tilden and is built and sold by WowWee.
Operation
The Robosapien has movable driven by electric motors body parts as well as various sensors, thus he is able to interact to some extent with its environment. The movement sequences are programmable and can be accessed via a remote control. This rather complex motion sequences are feasible, such as dance, karate, etc. The balance represents the Robosapien by correspondingly heavy and wide feet ago.
Development
Meanwhile, the Robosapien V2 successor has appeared, which can also be purchased in Germany since November 2005. It is characterized by an impressive size of about 60 cm, has much better grip hands, can now lift heavy objects such as a beverage can and sit independently, lie down and stand up. The controller now has similarity to a game console input device. The language ability and programmability has been significantly expanded, as well as the V2 now has the ability to recognize people and then greet them by hand rich or waving. The weight is about 5.9 KG.
End of 2006, the next version was introduced, the RS Media. With subwoofer, MP3 player, camera, SD card slot and PC connection. All functions can be programmed on the PC. There are four pre- set different personalities. The bundled software own personalities can be programmed. There are almost endless possibilities. It can play MP3 files are added and assigned to various functions. Thus, the RS Media can speak with different voices or comment commands.
Use in Robocup
Two teams ( University of Osnabrück against University of Freiburg ), each with three modified Robosapien played at the RoboCup German Open 2005, the first football game between autonomous humanoid robots worldwide ( previously only free kicks were executed, etc. ). The main modification was the replacement of the head by a PDA. A running on the PDA control program could now perceive a camera the environment and send infrared signals to the robot to react appropriately.
Awards
- 2004 - Toy of the Year Award