Robosapien: Latest Toy Robot From Mark Tilden

Onnimikki writes "Mark Tilden has been building really cool BEAM robots for a long time. Now, he's come up with RoboSapien, a toy that no self-respecting geek can go without. Videos of the RoboSapien at the 2004 New York City Toy Fair have been made available by Solarbotics. Mark offers some really good explanations about what makes them work."

Comments

Imagine if he spent $200!

[erick99]

Watch the demo video, the first one on the video page. The technology behind this robot is amazing! Each movement of the robot, for example, returns 50% of the energy used back to the batteries. This means the robot can run it's seven motors for 20 hours. While the robot itself is pretty wild - it can do some pretty wild things and not fall over - the real benefit, I think, is in how these innovations can be translated into more serious robotic applications. If he can do all of this with two chips and 12K of assembler code, imagine the possibilities for something that might cost a bit more than this robot's $99.

Happy Trails!

Erick

Re:Imagine if he spent $200!

[l810c]

It's been a few years since I was really interested in things like this. But this thing is just light years ahead of anything I'm aware of.

This looks like something that's released in Japan 3 years before it ever(if ever) makes it to rest of the world.

I'm reminded by those multi-million dollar Japanese robots(Doesn't Honda and someone else make one?). They have huge research labs, this guy has literally evolved his robots from bugs to sapiens. The next generations should be amazing.

Oh yea, and my son will be getting one of these for his 1st birthday in a couple of months. Here, play with the box.

Re:Imagine if he spent $200!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is wildly wild. Really really wild. I mean wild.

Re:Imagine if he spent $200!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or...imagine a beowulf cluster of these things...in Soviet Russia, to boot!

you can preorder this today

[way2trivial]

at best buy, 100$ pricetag

Re:you can preorder this today

[r_glen]

Online, too

Re:you can preorder this today

[Attaturk]

I for one welcome our new robosapien overlords.

Re:you can preorder this today

[Anonymous Coward]

International, eh? Well can ya preorder it anywhere outside the US?

World domination robot

[Anonymous Coward]

"A full function fast moving robot minion suitable for all your world domination needs."

And for only $99? Wow, we should've invested in these in Iraq.

Re:World domination robot

[iminplaya]

Wow, we should've invested in these in Iraq.

We would of, if Halliburton made 'em.

Re:World domination robot

[robochan]

I, for one, welcome our new RoboSapien overlords.

Re:World domination robot

[sydlexic]

We would of, if Halliburton made 'em.

there's more truth to that statement than you can possibly know.

Re:World domination robot

[domsol]

[I]We would of, if Halliburton made 'em.[/I]

But then they wouldn't have cost only $99 apiece...

Re:World domination robot

[Geeyzus]

They might have, the fuel that runs them would have been the killer though.

Bless You, Child

[illuminata]

Well, I have to give this guy credit, for when he was playing God he didn't choose to create RoboSapien in his own image.

I mean, shit, a big robotic dude with mean chops would freak me out.

Monkey vs. Robot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad the monkeys and robots have enough to produce a RoboSapien. I imagine that mating must've been quite painful.

Re:Monkey vs. Robot

[maduro55]

I also welcome our new monkey robot overlords.

Watching the video of the 5+ robots...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like Small Soldiers meets Star Wars.

Don't tell Arnold

[victor_the_cleaner]

Blatantly policital:

Good thing he didn't name it HomoSapien, or the Terminator/Gov. of California (difficult to tell which part is more of a stretch) would say:

What a Homo Robot? That is illegal!

Re:Don't tell Arnold

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, gay robots are alright. They just cant get a marriage license - see'in as how they are neither man nor woman!

Re:Don't tell Arnold

[ctrl-alt-elite]

"I dont want anyone to think were robosexual, so if anyone askes, your my debugger."
-Bender

Re:Don't tell Arnold

[Anonymous Coward]

Bender: What did you call me?!

Hobo: A Robo. You know ... a robot hobo.

Bender: Oh, ok, I thought you said romo.

Popular science quote

[t0qer]

At the bottom of the page they had 4 links, the one to popular science had this to say.

the 14-inch-tall RoboSapien, which will retail for about $80 when it hits stores later this year, uses analog transistors to react to signals from the world around it.

How is this different from the aibo?

Re:Popular science quote

[kertong]

it isn't $600. :)

Re:Popular science quote

[Anonymous Coward]

The philosophy of BEAM robotics

Re:Popular science quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the robots he builds aren't build using fast microcontrollers and heuristics to get things to move. They're designed using analog techniques (i.e. discrete amplifiers, capacitors, and resistors instead of a custom ASIC - similar to the way people designed things like TVs 30yrs ago with only a couple dozen transistors versus the millions of logic gates in modern TVs). So instead of using a digital timer on a chip you could use a charging capacitor. Well designed analog systems can be much better than digital solutions.

The main reason people don't do things in analog more often is that its hard to design and its typically even harder to design something that can be mass produced (due to tolerances/ manufacturing variations). A popular control systems design book has a photo of his UniBug on the cover because it's such a neat applications of controls theory. The bug can walk without needing any long fine tuning to get parameters to just the right value.

Of course analog design suffers from a whole host of problems that the digital world is relatively immune to. For example, noise in an analog system is a huge killer whereas noise in a digital system isn't so bad untill you start working at >100MHz. For example, 1-2mv (that's 10^-3) of noise in your analog system can be deadly if you're amplifying that signal by 100x-1000x whereas 1-2mv of noise in a digital part isn't such a big problem.

Re:Popular science quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, Aibo is approximately 8X the cost, but it adds:
color CCD,
3-axis gyroscope,
300+mhz 32bit RISC processor,
MemoryStick slot for data storage/user-written code (I have a 16mb card in one of my Aibos, 32mb in the other)
wireless lan card
OS based on Unix (Aperios)
stereo microphones
14 DOF
etc. etc. etc.

In short, this is a neat toy. Aibo is a neat toy, too, but can serve as a robust hardware platform for serious robotics/AI research.

At last

[CrystalCut]

A small, somewhat cute robot that wouldn't freak you at at 4 AM if you bumped into it.

Actually, I found this pretty cool. Amazing these little guys have such ablities consdering the technology.

After seeing countless videos of many different robots, this is on the only one I could see putting on my desk. Don't know how the ghosts who haunt my abode are going to feel about it though.

Re:At last

[Anonymous Coward]

check this one

http://www.feelaibo.com/ROBODEX2003/Movie/F707/

start with lnk_9.mpg and up

I, for one, welcome...

[Anonymous Coward]

...our tiny, little overlords.

Mirrors?

[chris-johnson]

Can anybody who manages to get to the page make a mirror, maybe even .torrent's for the videos? It's been maybe 5 minutes and hasn't loaded for me yet.

language skills

[victor_the_cleaner]

from the WooWee web site:

- Speaks fluent international "caveman".

It's nice to see more interest in 'caveman', unlike dying languages such as Latin or 'Furby'.

Although 'caveman' is not a selection at Babel Fish yet.

Re:language skills

[StringBlade]

Although 'caveman' is not a selection at Babel Fish yet.

...is "Furby"?

dammit!

[kertong]

"- 67 pre-programmed functions including pick-up, throw, kick, sweep,dance, fart, beltch, rap, and half-a-dozen different kung-fu moves.
- Speaks fluent international "caveman".
- Three demonstration modes: Disco dance, Rude behavior, and Kung Fu kata.


Well, looks like I'm going to lose my job to a $100 robot.

Re:dammit!

[fnord123]

My girlfriend already told me to start packing my things :(

Would these things interact with each other?

[Simon Carr]

If not, that should be stage two. Why buy one $99 minion to bully your colleagues with, when you can buy two that will work as a team (heh). And of course, who could resist the sick pleasure of making them fight each other for batteries.

Re:Would these things interact with each other?

[iminplaya]

I'd rather see 'em "do the nasty on the white house lawn"

Page down

[r_glen]

Dammit, these things are taking over the internet already

Nice but?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it plug itself in?

Re:Nice but?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, RTFA I should have asked if can change it's own batteries!

RoboSapien media

[dnixon112]

Bigger picture:
http://www.androidworld.com/www_toy.jpg

Video:
http://www.iirobotics.com/downloads/robozip.zip

Re:RoboSapien media

[mobby_6kl]

The original site is slashdotted, but are there any other videos? I don't know if I should search for more mirrors.
BTW, these are .WMVs

Re:RoboSapien media

[jwgoerlich]

That's an old photograph. Wowwee changed up the head.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000161RFA.01.PT 02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Compromise:

[mobby_6kl]

The Governator

Come to daddy

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Farts, belches, who needs bio-brats when you can have one of these for $99 and less than 9 months waiting time.

Re:Come to daddy

[Nimloth]

Hey for us Canadians who can't afford hi-tech military equipment, this might come in handy...

I mean we could buy like 10 000 of them (80$ a piece, more or less 800 000$) and train them to crash helicopters and sink our battleships...

Re:Come to daddy

[orkysoft]

Bite my shiny analog ass! ;-)

Re:Come to daddy

[Shadwell]

I realize this is Slashdot but...There is the whole having sex thing. :P

This is not especially interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Pray tell, why is this an especially interesting development? This toy is basically a remote-controlled device. Far from a "robot", like AIBO or QRIO which actually have autonomous capabilities and can decide to do things on their own.

I move to strike the word "robot" from any device that is not autonomous in some fashion... :)

Re:This is not especially interesting

[EtherealSys]

In my opinion, this is an exciting article, not because of the robot's capabilities, but because of its price tag. This is bringing some pretty sophisticated robotics to a completely different market than the AIBO or QRIO. If these motor skills can really be done at such a price, there's no reason why we shouldnt see pretty dramatic drops in the prices of the more expensive tech toys.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[kfg]

Is a programable industrial robot a robot?

KFG

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

If these motor skills can really be done at such a price, there's no reason why we shouldnt see pretty dramatic drops in the prices of the more expensive tech toys.

Don't be so sure. These are analog control circuits, not digital logic. So there' s no CPU or microcontroller to program with autonomous-ish behavior. And theres not an easy (or cheap) way to control the analog circuits even with add-on digital controller of some sort or add new response behavior based on new sensor inputs -- the discrete component operating ranges are to small to produce the wide variety of behavior you can do with digital logic.

So, if you want this toy to do something new, you can't just tweak some assembly code, or vary the pulse-code modulation signal to a servo, you have to design a new control circuit. There's the rub.

Still kinda cool to watch an $80 robot do a little jig with decent dexterity. It's a great achievement in low-cost analog feedback control systems. If we just knew how to make cheap resistors and capacitors with wide ranges of easily-controllable parameters, we'd be seeing some major advancements spawning from this.. .

Re:This is not especially interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Pray tell, why is this an especially interesting development? This toy is basically a remote-controlled device.

Because with a little bit of reverse engineering, this toy can be controlled as easily by a microcontroller taped to its back and some sensors taped to its front as by a human watching it and pressing buttons. There aren't too many other hackable walking platforms for $99 out there. I built one with 12 servos about two years ago, and the servos alone cost me $120. I can't wait to take one of these apart.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

is this really programmable, or can you just choose the order of execution of canned actions with no sensor feedback or branching or looping possible?

Re:This is not especially interesting

[SWTP_OS9]

Actualy human are basicaly an analog unit. Good concept of using analog which in motor control works better than trying to do it digitaly.

If this thing runs! Then pitty the poor cat population! { Evil laughter goes here! }

Re:This is not especially interesting

[elmegil]

It does sound automomously programmable, just not completely behavioral like Aibo. Of course it's not $1500 either. Also there's this bit from the All Nerd Review article:

What Tilden emphasized with the RoboSimian, was the customization possibilities involved. Are you listening, action figure customizing freaks? Now you can dress up and paint your very own robot. He also said that because of its affordability, techno-geeks (I'm looking at you, Dave) can open this sucker up and play around with his insides, looking to see not only how he works, but what can be done to him. Wise move.

If Mark Tilden says he made it so you could play with the guts, I think I'm gonna want to play with the guts.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

Well, strictly speaking everything in the real world is analog, of course. But, in the way we're using the terms here, analog means made from discrete analog components and feedback circuits with fixed values, which are distinctly unlike the human's (and other animals') unique ability to vary the analog operations in such widely varying and relatively precise ways.

Digital, as relevant here (like an Aibo), means able to be approximated by binary values and transformed by logical operations using digital circuits that drive digital-analog converters such as servos and motors with "digital" imputs and controls. This sort of thing lends itself very easily to programming that can be changed and modified easily, sensors added to the system with little impact or re-design needed, etc.

My point was that analog discrete devices, like the ones used in this toy, tend to be only cheap enough to warrant a system price of $80 when they are the plain old-fashioned fixed values, which means the circuit made of these that controls the behavior is not variable (its behavior depends on these fixed values). It does one thing, and has a few circuits that it can shunt in an out to do several canned things. But making it do a new thing, even a slight variation is hard and expensive, and adding a new input from a new sensor, something trivial in most digital control systems (like an Aibo), is nigh impossible.

So, again, the only way this sort of analog-circuit control system robot toy will help bring down the cost of other, digital processor-based robots, is if we find a way to make cheap discrete components with variable parameter values controllable by digital logic, and even then the savings would be pretty small. You still need the ASIC with the microcontroller in it. Maybe your servos and motors could be a bit cheaper -- maybe.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[kfg]

I have to rely on context to descern what I believe your meaning to be, because you have answered my question with a nonsequitor question.

I take your question to refer to the toy robot. I am ignorant of it beyond the text material linked to in the story. I do know that Tilden's insect robots made of little more than a few discrete electronic componants and bits of bent wire perform amazing things without any programable functions at all. I'm not sure why adding programability would make this robot less capable, but anything I might have to say along that line would be pure speculation on my part.

Therefore I declined to address issues of the robot at all.

My question was explicitly aimed at the definition of robot in general, which was the main point of the parent post.

KFG

Re:This is not especially interesting

[mrtroy]

How about we leave AI for autonomous functionality

And continue using robotics correctly to refer to ROBOTS

Like Mr. Roboto.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[mrtroy]

This could be REALLY fun to play with I want to buy one, and create a 20$ modchip for it that allows you to turn it into a weapon of miniature distruction (WMD)

Then, late one night, sneak an army of these into iraq. Take that GWB!!!

Can you imagine like 20 of these things having a game of tag?

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

Let me hold your hand as we stroll through it together, then:

This is not a robot (in the opinion of the original poster and me) because it is neither autonomous nor does it have the capacity to be made autonomous-ish by adding sensors and a brain (microcontroller). It can only perform canned macro-functions and sequences of these canned macro-functions. Micro-scale control of its functions is not available.

A programmable assembly-line robot is, however, a robot not because it's autonomous in itself (assuming you're talking about the arm / mechanical part), but because it could be autonomous if you grouped it with it's controller, which is a reasonable thing to do despite the fact that they tend to be seperated by some distance in practice, they key is they need not be. In most assembly lines, the robots are programmed to do repetitive tasks with minimal or no variation of behavior based on sensor inputs. But they could easily -- you just have to re-program the microcontroller (brain) and add sensors. So they are indeed robots -- micro-scale control of their behavior is available, and with inputs, a microcontroller, and some clever code, you can make an autonomous robot.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[Nurf]

This is not a robot (in the opinion of the original poster and me) because it is neither autonomous nor does it have the capacity to be made autonomous-ish by adding sensors and a brain (microcontroller). It can only perform canned macro-functions and sequences of these canned macro-functions. Micro-scale control of its functions is not available.

It already has a microcontroller, and if you changed the code on the microcontroller, you could program it with whatever behaviour you want.

Sure, it uses nervous networks to control the motors, but the networks are excited by a microcontroller.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[C64]

This is not a robot (in the opinion of the original poster and me) because it is neither autonomous nor does it have the capacity to be made autonomous-ish by adding sensors and a brain (microcontroller).

I beg to differ. We may not be able to "code" directly against the RoboSapien, but that need not stop us from automating it. As other industrious fellows have demonstrated, you can work around the ingrained limitations by attacking the external controller, instead. While we won't be able to (trivially) expand on the RoboSapien's existing repertoire, we're still welcome to work within its existing framework.

Personally, I'm looking forward to experimenting with this thing. Assuming the controller uses regular IR to communicate, it shouldn't be too much of a burden to simulate it's remote. If that fails, I guess it's time to tear apart the remote itself... I wonder how expensive spare remotes are? :)

Re:This is not especially interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a brief blurb in one of the many movies where it was mentioned that one of the two chips in the toy was a motor controller based on his nv-net designs. I'm under the impression that they have an ASIC which contains the analog circuitry. IC's make no particular distinction whether they contain analog processing versus digital. Integrating both on the same chip is sometimes problematic, otherwise there isn't a big deal.

The price considerations don't really apply since it can be pretty cheap integrating analog components on chip, versus having large (relatively speaking) external components. Additionally, there are a lot more toys to play with on silicon - mosfets can be used as variable resistors, passive components can be matched to within a percent easily, and if they really pulled out all the stops, analog switches can be used to reconfigure the nvnet circuitry on the fly.

The main consideration with this is that it requires time and money to design a chip like this. Having the backing of a toy company and a cute sellable target is a pretty ideal way of funding such an experiment.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[kfg]

Well, it's an interesting opinion, although it differs from the dictionary definition. Nor am I entirely certain your conclusions about the toy robot are true. I don't see why adding sensors and a microcontroller to a fully functional mechanical man wouldn't create an autonomous mechanical man, or the difference between this mechanical man's controller being remote from himself and the industrial robot's controller being remote from itself.

I could add such sensors and microcontrolers to my R/C car easily enough and your definition seems to rely on being able to add things to a machine to make it a robot.

You'll also have to hold my hand through the micro scale control of movements issue. I'm at a loss as the to relevance of that.

I would hold that my analog thermostat, which has a sensor and reacts autonomously to enviromental factors to perform a useful mechcanical funtion is a robot, although lacking a microcontoller, or any electronic way of modifying its behaviour.

I take it you would disagree with me, and also hold that BEAM robots are not robots if they lack a microcontroler?

KFG

Re:This is not especially interesting

[zozzles]

To all who think this is a particularly "analog" device, I'd like to point out that in the "intro" video clip, the ending words are:

So, that's pretty cool for a hundred buck robot with no gyroscope, the brain of a calculator and two chips inside, one, the Hitachi motor driver based upon nervous network control technology, and two, a dedicated sound processor based on a 4-depth stack modified PIC20 and 12K of assembler code.

(see also http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beam/message/41592 )

This is a radio controlled toy that is run by a microcontroller (the PIC20) using 12Kb of programming. Yep, good old software, the bane of the BEAMworld.

The motor driver chip no doubt is a variation on Tilden's "adaptive h-bridge design", but that is about all of the "nervous net technology" that is being used - heck, the motors in all the other "robots" are analog but no one goes around claiming how they are so special...

I am going to buy one simply because it is a lot of "stuff" for relatively little money. However, having been the BEAM Heretic for 7 years now, I take all the the exaggerated claims with the same tablespoon of salt I usually do.

Old quote: Digital is just really fast analog.

Zoz
hogfather@no spam earthlink.net

Re:This is not especially interesting

[Burstwave]

I'm ordering one to take it apart. While the toy is not autonomous, Robosapien incorporates several clever engineering techniques. As Mark Tilden explains in his video, this particular toy: (1) has motor arrangement that operates 50% efficiency, allowing it to run for 20 hours off of a single charge; (2)cleverly exploits hexagonal geometry and resonant physics to maintain balance, allowing the robot to be self balancing even when its arms are horribly distended outwards (3)contains a simple neural network chip that allows the robot to balance. This little humanoid appears to be supremely hackable; as a robotic "frame," it's an awesome deal for $99. Looks kind of cute too.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

An analog motor controller is usually a closed-loop feedback control system consisting or resistors, capacitors, inductors, and amplifying transistors. Which is not really the forte of ASICs. I'm not sure why you're under the impression there's an ASIC in the Robosapien -- I didn't see that anywhere, and I read every link I could find. I guess there could be, but that'd be overkill -- a simple PIC running a very simple state machine could handle this:

Using the ergonomic remote control, you can command Robosapien(TM) to perform up to 67 pre-programmed functions including pick-up, throw, high-five, whistle, dance and three different karate moves.

Robosapien(TM) is fully programmable. He can perform a programmed chain of commands in any combination of moves that you select. For example, you can create your own dance sequence or program him to walk straight, turn left and give your buddy a high five.

The cool thing about this isn't the complexity of the system, or it's ability to be as autonomous as even a Roomba, rather its lifelike motion accomplished by very fast, very cheap (but not at all flexible or extensible) analog closed-feedback loop control circuits.

Analog circuits, BTW, are much harder and more expensive to design than digital logic. Most cheap PICs and simple controllers include no such analog circuits (just A/D and/or D/A if you spend a bit more). Certainly not the highly custom and tuned ones needed here. ASICs also cost more for custom analog cores. Your ASIC vendor may give you a stock, commonly-used analog core for free (PLL, DLL, D/A, A/D, etc.) but you'll pay for custom layout, at least one test chip, and lots more per part to design your own RLC/amplfier circuit into an ASIC than just using the stock cellbase or gatearray digital logic.

And, without being even more expensive, the 1% accuracy you quote for passive component variations on cmos (the cheap) process is way low. More like 10-500%, especially for the relatively large (~kOhm, mH, and mF) R, L, and C values needed for control systems. It's easier to make really small R, L, and C's on cmos, but the accuracy is poor unless you pay a lot more than $80. Moreover, the amplifiers you need are too strong for cheap cmos processors -- why buy enough die for tens of thousands of tiny weak transisors optimized for on/off operation (which is the smallest feasible die to make these days) when you only need a few strong ones configured to amplify? Discrete would be cheaper and more precise/tunable in this case.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[tsm_sf]

Your post doesn't really jibe with this quote from the BEAM faq:

How do I make a light seeking 'Head'? A robotic head is a bot that can either sit on a base or be mounted on another robot such as a walker and feed information about the environment to the legs. The base is connected to the shaft of the motor and the battery, light sensors and electronics are mounted on the motor. Most heads I've seen look at the brightest source of light.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

No, the microcontroller used simply selects which canned action to replay. It's not programmable other than re-ordering these canned sequences. You most certainly cannot program it with whatever behaviour you want.

Here's a challenge -- it can dance, which includes bending it's left knee at one point. Amazingly, when bending the left knee, the rest of the robot bends accordingly to maintain balance. Try making it bend it's left knee at some other time during the dance and/or making it use another way to balance itself (arm extension vs. bending right ankle, for example). Sorry. (1) It can't -- the programmability on that fine a scale is not available and (2) it would fall over if it tried, because the control system doesn't know how to balance in anything other than the 67 pre-set conditions/sequences. You can make it dance, run, walk, turn, etc. but you cannot make it do a new dance.

A lot of the responses to my posts seem to be from those who erroneously assume I don't think this is cool. I do think this is cool. Very cool. I just don't think it will significantly affect the price, performance, or ubiquity of the more advanced, highly-programmable, and extensible digital robots out there. It's a different kind of system that trades programmability for inexpensive robustness.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

Sure it does. I didn't say it's hard to add a device to trigger or sequence the 67 possible motions of this thing. Heck, the remote does that. I just said you can't make or program new actions or intricate stimulus-response bahavior to it. It can only do 67 things, but it does them well, quickly, cheaply, and impressively.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

We may not be able to "code" directly against the RoboSapien, but that need not stop us from automating it.

Unless you're just interested in varying the combos/sequences of the 67 canned actions, or just want to control/program them from a different interface than the remote, yet is does.

A lot of posters in this thread, probably with some exposure to Aibo and the like, seem to have a hard time grasping how basically (fundamentally) different this is. I suppose I'm partially to blame for not coming up with a simple, easy to get example. To that end, try this:

Although the robosapien can move its right arm down as part of a dance, you cannot just make it move its right arm down without doing that dance. You can select "dance", or program "dance" to happen when the room lights come on, or after some other action via the remote, but to get that arm motion it must be doing "dance" as originally designed (no variations on "dance" allowed!)

In contrast, you can program any Aibo servo to move to any position exactly under any conditions -- it's your (the control program creator's) problem if it falls over doing so.

Am I getting more pithy yet?

Re:This is not especially interesting

[randyest]

I don't see why adding sensors and a microcontroller to a fully functional mechanical man wouldn't create an autonomous mechanical man

Because you can only make a robosapien do one, or some sequence of, 67 canned actions. You can't make new actions. It's just the 67, that's all forever, no more, no hope to expand.

Contrast with Aibo where every sensor and servo can be read/ignored/actuated to whatever degree you (or the stock programmers) can imagine.

That's what I mean by "micro scale control of movements".

I would hold that my analog thermostat, which has a sensor and reacts autonomously to enviromental factors to perform a useful mechcanical funtion is a robot, although lacking a microcontoller, or any electronic way of modifying its behaviour.

The robot/non-robot thing is a semantic aside. I'm sort of sorry for supporting the original poster on that -- "autonomous agent" is a better word for what I mean than is "robot".

But, your thermostat, generally expected to at most (1) turn on heat (2) turn off heat (3 turn on AC (4) turn off AC, is "robotic" in that it's automatic, and it does everything you'd expect a thermostat-robot to be able to do, controllable as finely as you like. An android robot, one might expect to be able to move each joint independently -- that's not the case here, as I have explained in several posts. This thing has 67 possible canned macro-level sequences it can act out. You can't just control the motors as you like and invent new behavior.

I take it you would disagree with me, and also hold that BEAM robots are not robots if they lack a microcontroler?

I take the robot-definition-changer support back. Really. It's a robot, for sure, it's just not an autonomous agent and there's no hope of making it one cheaply.

Re:This is not especially interesting

[Nurf]

No, the microcontroller used simply selects which canned action to replay. It's not programmable other than re-ordering these canned sequences. You most certainly cannot program it with whatever behaviour you want.

*shrug* I have watched Mark Tilden's explanations of what it does. I have picked up the short comments he has made about how it is controlled. I have 7 years of university in computer science and electronics, and 6 years in the field, and my interpretation of what he said is that if I were to get into that Hitachi controller/PIC combo and insert my own machine code, I would be able to drive the motors as I liked, including screwing up the nervous net feedback systems and making it fall over.

Note I am not talking about futzing with a stupid remote control. Also, I am happy to state that the device is programmable if I can modify code on the device so that it can respond to external stimuli in ways that the original unit did not.

To pick a parallel, but obviously silly example: Do you claim a Sony Aibo is not programmable because the inbuilt systems don't allow you to tell it to explode? It can only move legs around, after all, and wiggle a head. There is no built in facility for explosions, hence it is not programmable? In parallel, on the Robosapiens, some movements are tied to other movements by the nervous net to ensure that the device doesnt fall over. Beyond that you can do what you like, but somehow it isn't programmable?

Beyond your somewhat limited definition of "programmable", you either have access to some very particular information of which I am unaware, or your hardline stance on the capabilities of the internal workings of the control systems for this device is unwarranted.

A lot of the responses to my posts seem to be from those who erroneously assume I don't think this is cool. I do think this is cool. Very cool. I just don't think it will significantly affect the price, performance, or ubiquity of the more advanced, highly-programmable, and extensible digital robots out there. It's a different kind of system that trades programmability for inexpensive robustness.

I made no claims about the impact of such techniques on more expensive or more complicated systems, but I must disagree with you. If I can use a simple analog feedback system to ensure the balance of a system, why not do so? Instead of spending money on balancing, I can spend it on something like image recognition.

The human body has balance feedback loops that terminate at the base of the spine. Because of this, I can argue with you and type with two hands, instead of having to spend concious brainpower on not falling over, or use a hand to hold my face off the table.

Similarly, you don't spend your life thinking "breathe in, breathe out". You have analog control systems running in the background that do that for you.

If there is an inexpensive way to isolate a problem and solve it, it will be used as a module for solving problems in larger more complicated systems.

Please try this test: Sit with your legs off the floor. Now swing your right leg in clockwise circles. Now hold up your right arm, hang your hand and swing it around in anticlockwise circles. Note that your leg just changed the direction of it's swing, without your violition. As far as I know, humans simply can't do the above motion successfully, due to limitations on the number of sequence generators in the spine. Does that mean we are just a purveyors of canned sequences?

If so, does this mean that:
a) Canned sequences are bad?
b) You are not programmable?

Re:This is not especially interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote about the asic was spoken in one of the movie files, in an offhand manner. I'm sorry I can't provide a better reference; I don't have a copy of the movies here.

The motor controller in the typical Mark Tilden design is freakishly different from standard closed loop feedback designs. Instead of the typical "linear systems" designs his previous designs, use a whole pile of coupled oscillators to generate the signals and handle feedback. These oscillators need R's, C's, and transistors. The last time I wandered through his papers, the most complex bot had on the order of ~100 transistors. You can go out and buy, for $.20, analog chips that have a couple hundred transistors.

Analog chips are more difficult to design, but mainly because there isn't a magical program which generates and routes the circuit from a functional description (as compared to digital design languages like VHDL). On the other hand, you're typically dealing with ~100's of transistors versus ~10000's or more for any basic 8 bit micro. As for the cost, its a matter of economics. At some point, its cheaper to have a custom chip to control 7 motors, and all the related power circuitry, versus having a pile of jellybean parts connected together. And considering a run of a nice slow low density analog chip with a couple hundred transistors can be had for the $10K (wild guess, sorry), it isn't that big of a cost.

I mentioned the 1% number with regards to matching parts. Yeah, the absolute accuracy will suck, but having if you make half a dozen of the passives next to each other, you'll notice that they match up very well. As soon as you go into analog chip design, you need to learn about differental circuits because it is the only way of achieving high accuracy.

One side note, analog control circuitry *very* rarely uses inductors. Inductors are typically used when *required* in power circuitry, or RF/filtering applications. In all other applications, you stay the heck away from them. Take a look in the "Art of Electronics", a pretty standard beginners reference, for details. In general, inductors have way too many drawbacks - they have way to many undesirable parasitics when compared to R's and C's. Plus they tend to be 10x the price, too big, and other stuff.

To date, all of Mark Tilden's designs have been small "toy" designs. There is a limit on how many discrete transistors you can fit in a given space. Additionally every discrete transistor you buy has a couple cents worth of packaging surounding it. At some point, the extra size/cost of the packaging makes it hard to expand the circuit. Another post mentioned that complexity limitations start kicking in - You might end up with more wiring/ multi layer boards(read expensive) just to wire up the discrete components. If he can adapt his oscillator based circuits to an IC environment, and make it at least somewhat generic, someday you might be able to buy a Tilden(tm) branded nvnet control chip, and use it to replace a couple dozen discretes cheaply.

-hjames

Re:This is not especially interesting

[tgrigsby]

Who says you have to muck with anything internal? Most folks didn't crack open Furbies to figure out how to control them, they just grocked the IR signals. Same here. To make it act more intelligently, you put microphones and cameras on it and wire the remote to a computer. Now the "brain" can see, hear, and has a body to move around.

You know it's going to happen...

Mini-Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say, "Mini-Me"....

World domination, eh?

[Faust7]

A full function fast moving robot minion suitable for all your world domination needs.

*looks at robot*

Well, sure, if you plan to dominate the portion of the world that's smaller than 14 inches.

I guess that could work. I mean, if you control the floors and electrical outlets, you pretty much control everything.

Re:World domination, eh?

[kfg]

The mice man, the mice!

KFG

Re:World domination, eh?

[katre]

I guess that could work. I mean, if you control the floors and electrical outlets, you pretty much control everything.

My cat has two rules:

• Anything on the floor is his.
• Anything on anything that is his, is his.

Since rule 2 is applied recursively, he can easily rule the entire apartment, despite being less than 14 inches tall!.

Re:World domination, eh?

[NanoGator]

"Since rule 2 is applied recursively, he can easily rule the entire apartment, despite being less than 14 inches tall!."

Now that you mention it, my cat has me trained to walk around him in the hallway... Dammit.

Re:World domination, eh?

[gringer]

Well, sure, if you plan to dominate the portion of the world that's smaller than 14 inches.

There's something smaller that, arguably, dominates a lot of the world (at least the more "personal" aspect of it). If these robots could dominate anything smaller than 14 inches, all men would be voraciously opposed to these robots.

Re:World domination, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck.. My cat tries to trip me up every chance he gets. You don't want to walk down the hallway at my house in the dark. Kamikazi kitty will get you!

Re:World domination, eh?

[euxneks]

This is why I like dogs. You own the dog, not the other way around.

More Videos

[smr2x]

Hate to do this to this poor server.. But there's a zip file with two videos here:

http://www.iirobotics.com/webpages/hotstuff.php

Have fun!

Reminds me of...

[Beolach]

The trailer/advertisement for the I, Robot movie being made right now. Looks more like an ad for an actual robot, rather than a movie.

pre-orders at BestBuy and ToysrUs/Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

BestBuy is taking preorders for RoboSapien at $99.99 shipped free.

Toysrus.com has it for $89.99 but no free shipping.

Re:pre-orders at BestBuy and ToysrUs/Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

It really was listed at $89.99 but at some point during this topic the price got raised.

I swear I checked it earlier, maybe too many orders got their attention.

Re:pre-orders at BestBuy and ToysrUs/Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

And google cache shows it at $89.99

no computer required! :(

[Roman_(ajvvs)]

that's a shame.. I hope that they made it optional at least! I want to make my robosapiens scare the crap out of my housemate when he gets home! :)

Re:no computer required! :(

[Trigun]

Oh, I'm certain that you could do it with LIRC.
It would be nice if it could respond back though.

Page 2 - where the movies aren't

[3digitnic]

From the never quite loaded page 2
http://www.solarbotics.net/gallery/Wowwee-Robosapi en?page=2

Robosapien-intro.mpg (18 Mb MPG-1, 320x240).
Mark Tilden gave Solarbotics a private viewing of the
Robosapien. This video shows off the basic capabilities of the robot (due this summer!).
Viewed: 13 times.

Robosapien-geometry.mpg (11 Mb MPG-1, 320x240).
Mark Tilden explains the geometry in the Robosapien
Viewed: 3 times.

Robosapien-remote.mpg (8.2Mb MPG-1, 320x240).
Mark Tilden shows off the considerable abilities of the remote when programming the Robosapien.
Viewed: 2 times.

Robosapien-showroom.mpg (7.5 Mb MPG-1, 320x240).
A general shot of the Wow-Wee showroom at the NYC Toy Fair. It was generally always this busy!
Viewed: 5 times.

Speaking of toy man ...

[WankersRevenge]

whatever happened to rocket guy? has he blown himself up yet?

My favorite Mark Tilden story

[Anonymous Coward]

I got this at least second hand so if somebody has a more accurate version I would be interested to hear it.

Mark was giving a presentation at a conference. He was showing off one of his small insect robots. He then (to the audience's horror) crumpled it up like a wad of paper and put it down on top of the overhead projector. The audience was then able to see it unfold itself and walk away.

Unfortunately, the story has a larger context which explains how it comes to be that Mark is down in the States rather than still here in Canada. Again, I would be interested in hearing an accurate version of the story.

Re:My favorite Mark Tilden story

[mkucic]

This is true! Mark Tilden visits the Telluride workshop each year. This is gathering of Neuromorphics junkie, I being one of them attended one year. He builds robots using a very simple basic building block. Each building block being able to run on its own. The building blocks connect together to form a larger system. He can literally damage the system and it will continue to operate. Each block adapting to the lack of input from its neighboring block. Kinda weird to watch someone rips wires out of the gut of a system and then see the thing adapt to the loss and still move along.

Re:My favorite Mark Tilden story

[Tekmage]

One of the core ideas he's getting across when he does that (or at least at the time when I saw him talk back in '92 or '93) is that analog is a lot more robust when it comes to failure modes and design considerations. If you have a more robust platform to start building upon, you can do more with less.

He's a fascinating guy to meet in person. You have to have your wits about you and be hard-core techie to track his conversations though. :-)

When everyone else was focused on computationally intensive approaches to trying to make things walk, he was doing it with a handful of transistors. And as you pointed out, he's not up here in Canada any more...

Since I can't even preorder a Robosapien to ship to a Canadian address, I'll be picking up a couple when they come out on my next State-side trip!

Re:My favorite Mark Tilden story

[c]

Mark was giving a presentation at a conference. He was showing off one of his small insect robots. He then (to the audience's horror) crumpled it up like a wad of paper and put it down on top of the overhead projector

Sounds like Mark. When he was a lab tech at University of Waterloo, I got to see him do similar things on many occasions, although maybe not as extreme. Then again, his budget was whatever he could scrounge at surplus electronics stores. He'd bend and twist the wire legs of robots, flip them on their backs, swap around resistors to change the style of walk of the robot, and generally introduce randomness into their environment.

He also had the most kick-ass water gun ever, which he appears to have turned into a marketable product. Although it looks like he dropped the flash bulb. Pity.

c.

Re:My favorite Mark Tilden story

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew Mark as an undergrad- he mostly developed the insectoids that led to BEAM while employed by UW ;) Only he could get a patent on using CMOS inverters in analog mode when thousands did so before him. Mark proseletyzed his bugs around and was offered a six figure salary and his own lab at LANL, an offer he couldn't refuse. Nothing like DARPA dollars! Of course they had to send him away a few weeks to buy him a PHD somewhere as he doesn't have a legitimate one, a requirement for that level of pay at LANL. Green card? No problem - when the US gov wants you to build robot soldier hordes for them... last I heard he's doing a quarter mil a year from LANL even without wowee's and BEAM revenues. He is however a super nice guy, very enthusiastic even though a bit full of himself now, considering he fancies himself god's gift to AI, rather than just a smart guy that made cool bots out of walkman parts and turned it into a religion.

Re:My favorite Mark Tilden story

[Anonymous Coward]

Very interesting...

Of course they had to send him away a few weeks to buy him a PHD somewhere as he doesn't have a legitimate one, a requirement for that level of pay at LANL.

I was told by an insider that personnel had his education rating "officially" limited to being a bachelor's degree.

last I heard he's doing a quarter mil a year from LANL

He left LANL somewhat before September of 2001. I believe I've heard that there is a book that is required to be in the Los Alamos County Library that lists all of the employees and their salaries, but that might have been "once upon a time".

He is however a super nice guy, very enthusiastic

All absolutely true. Also extremely generous.

-- Let's see... who am I today?

Re:My favorite Mark Tilden story

[Anonymous Coward]

he came over at our highschool (right near UW) and after his talk the shop teacher gave him a calculator as a present.

he immediately proceeded to rip the thing to pieces, and see what he can use the parts for.

really cool guy, and as far as robotics goes, i think he's definitely on the right track, but i think there's a lot more development to be done until something revolutionary will come out of this.

respect

[Gherald]

> a toy that no self-respecting geek can go without

Apparently I am not very self-respecting!

BitTorrent for video files

[Dr. Ion]

The Solarbotics server is under a bit of stress, so here's a torrent for all four video files, 42.7MB total.

Re:BitTorrent for video files

[CaseyB]

Mod this up! Hell, this should be an update to the story.

Re:BitTorrent for video files

[temporalillusion]

Thank you so much. I agree, update the story with this link.

Re: Teams

[shubert1966]

It reminded me of three-man football team from 1970's Atari.

One day . . .

[OverlordQ]

One day americans will rule the world from their couches thanks to their robot slaves . . .

Re:One day . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cycles3d.com/spacechads/dean_reloaded.w mv

Re:One day . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

That day is already here. We send our Nintendo pilots to kill brown people so that they will quit their whining and get back to making cheap stuff for me to pretend I need.

That's what they get for being filty commie pinko liberal terrorists anyway.

It can fart?

[NanoGator]

Does that make it an android?

THUD! CRASH!

[SWTP_OS9]

Well need to wire the jaw back in place this is outstanding. Now tie it into a computer as a hire leval brain and wow!

That made the Sony one look like 2 year old mush!

Are they sure it will go for 99 dollars! WOW!

Re:THUD! CRASH!

[Jediman1138]

See kids? This is why drugs are bad.

I've got to say...

[smr2x]

This is one of the only robots I'd buy. Looks fun and entertaining, but the real clincher for me is the price.

A robot has always been a geek toy I've wanted, and this one will definitely fit my price range.

If anyone else has simliar, relatively low-priced robots, fill me in?

Thanks.

I want one with a wall plug

[NanoGator]

I bought an R2D2 last year, and I love it. It was especially fun at work when it'd roam around and annoy the engineers trying to work. (Hey, I still had status for having the neat toy!) One thing, though, is that there's a small window of opportunity where one can get away with that, and having a stationary mode for it would have been nice. They didn't put any sort of port on it where I could plug in from the wall. Pity because I'd like to have had that thing sitting my desk and turning it's head at everybody that walks by.

I really hope that this robot has a consideration like that. I don't know how appealing that is to others, but I'd love to decorate my office with neat lit up things that move around.

Re:I want one with a wall plug

[smr2x]

That's just a creepy image ;-)

But I love it!

Re:I want one with a wall plug

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's the Industrial Automation model (about 15 inches tall), it *does* have a wheel-lock mode. Keeps him stationary while active. But, in a major oversight, they didn't add a DC power plug. Given the requirement for 8 batteries, it would have been a nice touch.

great platform for hackers

[cliffmeece]

We just need an API and the Linux IR package. I can already imagine some amazing hacks. Put all the intelligence in a program on some computer with ir connectivity.

Actually, it would be great to hack this thing to use bluetooth or wireles, then you could program all sorts of intelligent behavior. Then you have the intelligence of an aibo like platform with the analog responsiveness of the robosapien.
You could develop an api, and then have kungfu fights between the little buggers, which would be part coding challenge, part robot wars.

Whew!

[jjeffries]

At first glance, I thought this had something to do with Solarbabies, arguably one of the worst films ever made. But it doesn't, so this is just plain ol' off-topic.

Break dance

[roman_mir]

On one of the videos a whole bunch of these robots are moving together, looks like a break dance team :)

I guess the way the remote controlling is designed it could be a problem get a bunch of robots to do different tasks at the same time. I did not notice any channel switches.

Woweee!

[rpj1288]

Here that sound? Its the sound of a server having its plug pulled by a kung-fu robot ninja.

Re:It's been done.

[Anonymous Coward]

nsfw? fuckingmachines.com! NFS!

C&D on the "would OF" business!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, strong joke - but c'mon man, you're making my eyes bleed over here.

People, it's would have. As in "We would've done it that way, had we known better. We would have written it like so, but we insisted on doing it incorrectly - for some incomprehensible reason." /Grammar-nazi-within-me out.

Re:C&D on the "would OF" business!

[Planx_Constant]

Yeah, they totally should of known better.

Re:C&D on the "would OF" business!

[mapmaker]

you really should of changed your sig for that post to:

Heisenberg might of been here.

Robosexual

[giminy]

Now, he's come up with RoboSapien, a toy that no self-respecting geek can go without.

At first glance, I thought this said "can go out with."

Re:Robosexual

[fufighter]

I was hoping it said "can go out with." ... What?

Re:Robosexual

[Xaroth]

I was going to mention the similarity to the word(?) 'RoboSexual', but in a different context:

Fry: Wait you're the only friend I have...
Bender: You really want a robot for a friend?
Fry: Yeah ever since I was six.
Bender: Well, ok but I don't want people thinking we're robosexuals, so if anyone asks you're my debugger.

$89.99 where?

[Dr. Ion]

Where do you see $89.99 at Toysrus? It's coming up $99.99 here.

Re:YOU CAN PREORDER MY DICK IN YOUR MOUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

cool. where? :-)

Neat!

[mrseigen]

I guess the Army will be buying a couple of these to prototype their little "robotic minion" projects out on.

Shame it's not programmable, it'd be a great U.S. Wonderborg.

Dang, maxed out on my 2,5 Mbps line :)

[janbjurstrom]

Gotta love the /. effect on torrents.

And yea, be good citizens and keep your seeds alive.

"Rude Behavior"?

[Penguinshit]

Finally I'll have someone to blame my flatulence on besides the dog and my wife (neither of whom are amused).

Grand & Tilden

[Usquebaugh]

I'm sort of an amateur AI/AL person, unlike the MIT clowns I admit to it :-)

There is a great deal in common between this and the game/work of Steve Grand. Steve has started to work with robotics and I think this a mistake. He could have taken his software to the next level.

Both Grand and Tilden feel that you can create life with very simple processes. You do not need to spell about how something is to behave but what something is. This is a fundamental change from the traditional AI/AL approach.

The exciting thing is that the approach of using simple processes is paying dividends. Where Grand might explain conciousness, Tilden can explain physiology.

Where is computing going in the future, take a look at the work of these two gentlemen and see for your self.

Re:Grand & Tilden

[kcelery]

"create life..."

The reproduction part of creating robot might be achievable some day when the robots can produce their own control logic. One thing attractive about this robot is the simplicity, op amp , resistor, capactors, that makes reproducing robots by robots themselves much earier than the digital conterpart.
Low-Drive-Voltage Printable Organic Field Effect Transistor

I love it!

[9Nails]

This thing is so cool! The price is right. I'll have one on pre-order as soon as I get a paycheck. And get it shipped next day. I can envision this robot guarding my mouse at work. And if someone touches it, hia-ya! He'll kung-fu the person.

I also got some paint ideas for it. Customizing the thing sounds like a blast. And because it comes in white, it should be easy. Battle damage any one?

Re:I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how the first thing a lot of people think of when some new technology comes along is "hey! how can it involve violence too?"

Annoying camera angle

[ILL Clinton]

Love the robot, hate the cameraman!

Was it really necessary to keep Mark Tilden in the shot at ALL times? Could we have gotten ONE close-up of the robot? A medium shot even?

Open source sig, feel free to modify it's source and distribute publicly.

already been done.

[rebelcool]

The player system.

If you have a robot which supports some form of connectivity (IR, wireless, tethered.. protocol isn't all that important), you can make player connect to your robot. Player is a TCP server which then allows you to write your robotics code in whatever language you see fit, provided it has the ability to connect via TCP. It abstracts away hardware in much the way a driver does, and provides a uniform way to access sensors and effectors.

It's a nice system.

$89.99 still listed on Froogle

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is still on Froogle as $89.99 for Amazon and Toyrus as proof.

Can't you just...

[I7D]

Can't you just program the remote? Maybe the robot himself can't be programed, but you can automate the thing that makes it go, no?

The Honda Robot

[Mick Ohrberg]

Doesn't Honda [...] make one?

Yes, Honda has ASIMO, or Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. I remember first seeing ASIMO walk around, looking a little creepy, since it walked with a relatively "human" style. It also "...turns sideways, climbs up and down stairs, and turns corners." And it's starting to look more and more human with each new prototype.

Re:The Honda Robot

[SnowZero]

Btw, it's not really an acronym, its a japanese word that means "gait or step". They came up with that sad acronym when it started touring North America.

This is _VERY_ interesting....

[Usquebaugh]

The real world can be analog and digital at the same time. It's red not blue. it's a sort of pinkish red. Is time discreet or continuos? What do you mean you do not know!

Fixed, what is fixed? There are a lot of fixed values in the human body. In fact most of the body is based on very fixed processes. Feed back, is a very fixed response. The complexity comes with the sheer number of feedback systems working in parrallel. We cannot model this complexity with a pre-programmed system, but it may be possible to simulate the feedback and then set those loose to model the system.

Have you _EVER_ worked with a digital robot, adding a new senosr is not easy? Adding a new response is not easy. In fact this is one of the main stumbling blocks of digital robots. Everytime you add a new sensor you have to explicity program for it. That means the robot is limited by the imagination/time of the designer.

In response to your last paragraph, take a look at beam robots. See how they can do tasks with a few components that complex digital robots cannot. See how they deal with component failures. Think about how this ties back to nature. See that tieing into a feedback circuit is easy, but ultimately unpredictable.

This whole area is opening up after 50+ years of going in the wrong direction and achieving only predictable systems. AI/AL is embracing simple systems that combine automatically to implement complexity.

Read Stephen Wolfram, Steve Grand and Mark Tilden. All three are showing that unpredictable complexity can be modeled by designing simple feedback systems and then letting them interfere with each other. Chaos theory is the underlying mathamatics.

To cast aside this arena as just a cheap toy is to be blind to the sheer scope of the undertaking.

Orville, Wilbour put down that paper plane it's just a toy.

Re:This is _VERY_ interesting....

[randyest]

I didn't say it wasn't interesting. One the contrary, it is an amazing control system, to repeat myself.

The real world can be analog and digital at the same time. It's red not blue. it's a sort of pinkish red. Is time discreet or continuos? What do you mean you do not know!

Time is continuous on the scale of interest to robotics -- human scale. No question.

Fixed, what is fixed? There are a lot of fixed values in the human body. In fact most of the body is based on very fixed processes. Feed back, is a very fixed response. The complexity comes with the sheer number of feedback systems working in parrallel. We cannot model this complexity with a pre-programmed system, but it may be possible to simulate the feedback and then set those loose to model the system.

Sure, if you're implementing the very-hard-to stabilize multiple simultaneous parallel interacting feedback loops. But that's not what this is. This thing does multiple sequential control systems. It's an important distinction theoretically and practically.

Have you _EVER_ worked with a digital robot, adding a new senosr is not easy? Adding a new response is not easy. In fact this is one of the main stumbling blocks of digital robots. Everytime you add a new sensor you have to explicity program for it. That means the robot is limited by the imagination/time of the designer.

Yes, I made a few based on 68HC11 microcontrollers in my EE undergrad work. It's technically challenging to add a new sensor and program/debug code to make it work in a digital system like that, especially if you don't know what you're doing. But it's infinitely easier to master than making a closed feedback loop control system be able to accept a new input and still be stable, much less actually do it.

In response to your last paragraph, take a look at beam robots. See how they can do tasks with a few components that complex digital robots cannot. See how they deal with component failures. Think about how this ties back to nature. See that tieing into a feedback circuit is easy, but ultimately unpredictable.

They each do pre-set things. Maybe several different ones, selectable in sequence, but the systems themselves are designed to be stable around a known point -- that's why they work -- there will never be any emergent behavior, or even cleverly-programmed unexpected behavior. It will always do what it does, however cool that may look.

Read Stephen Wolfram, Steve Grand and Mark Tilden. All three are showing that unpredictable complexity can be modeled by designing simple feedback systems and then letting them interfere with each other. Chaos theory is the underlying mathamatics.

Right, I didn't say it's not an interestig field with lots of cool stuff to discover. Maybe you're confusing me with the originator of this thread.

To cast aside this arena as just a cheap toy is to be blind to the sheer scope of the undertaking.

It is cheap. It is a toy. But I'm not casting it aside. I'm apt to buy one, in fact. I only noted that this technology is unlikely to decrease the cost of digital microcontroller-based robots and Aibo-like toys, except possibly by sheer competition and market force (at first), because it's fundamentally different technology.

Orville, Wilbour put down that paper plane it's just a toy.

That's not nice.

Re:This is _VERY_ interesting....

[SnowZero]

In response to your last paragraph, take a look at beam robots. See how they can do tasks with a few components that complex digital robots cannot.

... and see all the things complex digital robots can do that beam robots cannot. I'll stop working on traditional robots when someone wins with a beam robot in RoboCup. I'm not holding my breath.

It's kind of like saying launching satellites is trivial because you can build cheap and simple model rockets. Or this: O(n^2) algoritms are usually a lot simpler conceptually than the O(n log n) ones, but the simple ones don't scale.

Re:Popular science quote (analog noise)

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the genius of Tilden's nevous network (different from neural network) technology is that it makes use of the analog noise. The back-EMF (noise) from the dc motors is used to directly inform the nervous neuron about physical interactions with the environment.
What are ordinarily considered problems to be engineered out of analog designs are considered as opportunities for exploitation by BEAM roboticists

It should be RoboSapiens

[NonSequor]

Sapiens is the singular form. Sapientes is plural. So homo sapiens is singular and its plural form would be homines sapientes.

Re:It should be RoboSapiens

[linoleo]

WowWee wants you to obtain the missing 's' by buying two of them.

Drop a thousand on Mars for pre-construction..

[MrLinuxHead]

Just drop a thousand of these on Mars for pre-construction in advance for humans to land. Pave out runways and habitat in advence with a army of robot critters. Loose one or two, no big deal.

If you make 'em the size of a HumVee or a Cat then you have something that could do dirt work for years on solar power

Seriously in need of overclocking

[Crypto Gnome]

I'd recommend at least

• Additional Battery Capacity
• PC Interface (via RF, naturally)
• Video Camera

THEN you have something you can call a robot worthy of an Alpha Geek

Is this the same Mark Tilden that Subtitled Anime?

[tekrat]

A friend of mine and I used to trade tapes with this guy. Of course he's working on a Giant Robot -- he's an ANIME FANBOY....

UK Prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Rip-off Britain strikes again:

ToysRus.com: 89 dollars

irobotics.com: "just under 100 pounds". i.e. 185 dollars

It is time the EU acted against the cartels that do this with computers, cars, home electronics.

The origin of the name ASIMO

[The Monster]

its a japanese word that means "gait or step".

And here I thought it was an homage to the Good Doctor for inspiring millions of budding robot scientists with stories that didn't revolve around the robots going mad and trying to kill or enslave the humans (Terminator, Matrix, Galactica...) by inventing the three (four) Laws of Robotics.

inside ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's exactly inside ? I wanna see some electronics and mechanics diagrams, is there more detailed info on this ?
Thx !

Use tempest effects to control?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if you could use something like "Tempest for Eliza" to influence the action and get it to 'shake' to an MP3?

Tempest For Eliza is a program that plays music on an on AM radio using RF energy generated by rapidly changing an image on your monitor.

ASIMO a poor comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

QRIO (by Sony, not Honda) is most likely what the GPP was referring to. QRIO can also do kung-fu katas, etc, and is the technological successor to AIBO. ASIMO is ancient, relatively gigantic and not toy-sized. I haven't yet seen it do kung-fu.

Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

Blatantly linguistical:

Another good reason he didn't name it "HomoSapien" is because that means "human" and is not a clever name at all!

Hmmm. This has got possibilities!

[Anonymous Coward]

All this needs:

1. small efficient CCD camera
2. secure RF remote control
3. assorted weaponry

Now we've got a robot that we can form into combat tribes and hunt each other in mass combat! Woot! Quake? Half-life? Unreal?

Who cares about them! Now we've got a real war on our hands!

I am SO EXCITED about this!!!

[Anne Onymous]

I've been waiting for Mark Tilden to come out with a toy robot since I first read about him in Smithsonian magazine about four years ago!

*dances around* It's finally here, it's finally here!

Is it too girly of me that I want to make a little apron for it and make it do housework? ;)

Robotic Simian?

[euxneks]

What about a robotic Spider? Or some sort of multi-legged animal.. I presume that would make it easier and quicker on the ground, and you can just imagine all the looks from the envious geeks you know. Maybe something along the lines of a crab, so that it has gripping legs to pick up things as well as severl legs so it scurries along the ground.. I'd buy that! I'm not so sure about a slow mechanical monkey that burps and farts though..

Yes

[linoleo]

You can program action sequences that are triggered by sensor events. Looks like just the thing to spook my cat :-)

Is it just me?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Or does this thing look like it wouldn't tip over no matter what it did because of how big those feet are, and the fact that they have the weight of the batteries in them?

Now, all joking aside, this is seriously cool. A robotic toy I can afford (after college) which has a longer battery life than almost all similar toys on the market. Wow. When will we get to the point where they sell a shell unit like that, that allows us to upgrade it and add our own modules? I'd love a plug and play robot that wasn't too expensive/timeprohibitive to make. And so much the better if I can buy a missile launcher attachment.

Seriously, that's my one gripe with this thing, why is there no missile launcher attachment? He did say this was a toy didn't he? I won't be able to have it rampage through my giant lego city and destroy the defense force with missiles. :*(

Huh?

[Splurk]

Can somebody explain what he was talking about in the videos? Something about using non-cartesian geometry, a hexagonal body-style, a center of mass maintained near the navel...

Obligatory Kentucky Fried Movie quote

[BillX]

Scientist: "AAAAAH! A TOY ROBOT!!...Oh...hehe....a toy robot."

Toy robot: "Eat lead, suckers." (opens fire)

some thoughts

[rebelcool]

background: i work with 'autonomous robots' in an academic setting on some much more expensive and fancy equipment than the robosapien...

Because you can only make a robosapien do one, or some sequence of, 67 canned actions. You can't make new actions. It's just the 67, that's all forever, no more, no hope to expand..

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Most sensible autonomous architectures work this way these days. You take a few atomic actions and sequence them together to complete more complex behaviors. Now, usually you use your sensors during this time to see how you're progressing or if you need to try a different sequence to accomplish your task. Robosapien doesn't appear to have any external sensors though, aside from its innate sense of balance due to its geometry and hardwiring of the motor driver chip. I'm not sure what atomic movements RS comes with (if there are 67, thats very impressive).

Contrast with Aibo where every sensor and servo can be read/ignored/actuated to whatever degree you (or the stock programmers) can imagine.

On the other hand though, you've got to micro-manage really basic things (like balance) and need some fancy processing power to do it. And if you're programming it, the sensible thing to do would be to replicate the atomic movements I mentioned above.

You can't just control the motors as you like and invent new behavior.

You mean can't invent new atomic actions. I'm not quite sure about the validity of that statement even, since it depends on what level of parameter tuning you can do. I think most roboticists involved in autonomous agents would appreciate a robot having an innate sense of balance from its mere physics and electrical architecture. It would make their jobs easier in many respects.

Honestly, for what it does, the RS is a neat robot. The only thing really holding it back from autonomous nature is a lack of sensors to give it information about its environment and a way to process that data and then to use it to influence tuning parameters on the motor driver.

Most fully programmed autonomous systems work this way, except they need to manage the balance themselves in another thread of execution (if you're going fully software). What I'd like to see is a hybrid of this robosapien platform and some simple sensors to let it "see" obstacles or other things.

consider the uses...

[LifesABeach]

here little robot, i've got a broom with your name on it...

all joking aside, my lower back would be beholden if this little feller could hoe potatoes and such.