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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."
at best buy, 100$ pricetag
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The philosophy of BEAM robotics
Bigger picture:
http://www.androidworld.com/www_toy.jpg
Video:
http://www.iirobotics.com/downloads/robozip.zip
BestBuy is taking preorders for RoboSapien at $99.99 shipped free.
Toysrus.com has it for $89.99 but no free shipping.
The Solarbotics server is under a bit of stress, so here's a torrent for all four video files, 42.7MB total.
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.
everything in moderation