The WowWee Robosapien v2
posted Nov 27th 2005 1:56AM
Here's one for the tweeners or any robot loving fallible in the family — the $230 second generation Robosapien v2 with remote from WowWee. This 24-inch intelligent bot is not your father's robot. Oh no, the Robosapien v2 can see, hear, touch, and interact with you and his surroundings with a full range of fluid movement. Seething with attitude, his full-functioning arms with grippers allow him to pick-up and throw objects and then kung-fu your azz if you sass him. He features 100s of functions including a low-level gastro-intestinal condition resulting in the occasional air-biscuit or belch to your children's (and yours, admit it) amusement. He's also fully programmable which means you'll find hacks-a-plenty in the open-source community allowing you to extend his functionality. Just be careful you don't accidentally script-in consciousness 'cause you bet he'll hunt you down and enslave you like an elf.
The Robosapien V2 is definitely not "your father's robot" - and he's not even the Robosapien of just a year ago. The V2 has a lot more functionality and features than his predecessor, but all that comes with at a price. Not only is the new robot more than twice the price of the orginal, he is also more difficult to work with and control reliably. While the original RS remote control had a fairly simple color coded scheme with an LED to let you know what mode the robot was in, the V2 remote has three different shift keys and a control chart complex enough that takes hours to really master.
The V2 can do some amazing feats - like bowling. But to get it to bowl successfully, you have to go through a specific sequence to make it recognize the ball, grasp it, recognize the pins, and release the ball at the right moment. On the online Robosapien user forums experienced users have been reporting mixed results and some difficulty.
If you are looking for the best price/performance in a "toy" robot, then the V2 is great - assuming that you, or the person you give it to - has the interest and patience to stick with it long enough to learn it's operation. It's been compared to learning how to drive a stick-shift race car.
The original Robosapien was relatively easy to hack, but the V2 is much, much more complex and challenging even for the experienced hacker. There are some hacks in progress, like the PC based robo control http://www.robots-dreams.com/2005/11/sit_shake_howl_.html that will allow you to use your voice to command your V2, Roboraptor, and Robopet. Still, don't expect there to be hundreds of hacks available. There were never that many for the original robot, and the V2 is much harder to hack.
All things considered, it's a fantastic robot - really amazing - and one that I've been following on my blog http://www.robots-dreams.com with articles, feedback, and videos http://isobe.typepad.com/robotsvideos along with the Roboraptor and Robopet.