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Robosapien: Latest Toy Robot From Mark Tilden

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the soldering-skills-essential dept.

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."

4 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Popular science quote by kertong · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it isn't $600. :)

  2. This is not especially interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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... :)

    1. Re:This is not especially interesting by EtherealSys · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --

  3. This is _VERY_ interesting.... by Usquebaugh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.