RoboSapien

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RoboSapien.

RoboSapien is a toy-like biomorphic robot designed by Mark Tilden and produced by Wow Wee toys. The RoboSapien is preprogrammed with moves, and also can be controlled by an infrared remote control included with the toy, or by either a personal computer equipped with an infrared transmitter, and an infrared transmitter-equipped PDA. RoboSapien, as the advert for it says, is "The robot that thinks it's a human!".

The toy is capable of a walking motion without recourse to wheels on within its feet. It is also able to grasp objects with either of its hands, and is also able to throw grasped objects with mild force. It has a small loudspeaker unit, which can broadcast several different vocalizations, all of which appear to be recordings of a human male pretending to be a great ape, such as a gorilla.

The toy's remote control unit has a total of 21 different buttons. With the help of two shift buttons, a total of 67 different robot-executable commands are accessible.

1 Programming of the Robosapien
2 Command List
3 User Modifications
4 Soccer
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Programming of the Robosapien

The Robosapien, or more correctly the Robosapien controller, is equipped with a basic level of programmability. Users can string together movement commands to form what the toy's manual describes as either macros or mini-programs, but which are more correctly described as robotic instructions sets. A completed Instruction-set is broadcast to the Robosapien, which then saves the set to on-board memory for later execution. Instruction-set Programs can be re-played back by performing the following actions :

- pressing the "execute" button
- touching one of the sensors on the Robosapien's hands or feet
- putting the Robosapien in "listen" mode and then making a sharp noise.

It is also possible to produce a sensor-keyed instruction set, where the Robosapien will then perform a specific set of actions on contact with a specific sensor system (i.e. contact with the left hand would produce a set of sounds followed by a specific programmed gesture)

RoboSapien Remote.

[edit] Command List

Bulldozer	Burp
Fart (Oops)	High Five
Left arm down	Left arm in
Left arm out	Left arm up
Lean back	Lean forward
Lean left	Lean right
Left pick up	Left strike 1
Left strike 2	Left strike 3
Left sweep	Left throw
Left thump	Left (turn left)
Reset	Right arm down
Right arm in	Right arm out
Right arm up	Right pick up
Right strike 1	Right strike 2
Right strike 3	Right sweep
Right throw	Right thump
Right (turn right)	Roar
Step backward	Step forward
Stop	Talk back
Turn step left	Turn step right
Wake up	Walk backward
Walk forward	Whistle
Dance	Demo 1
Demo2	All Demo

[edit] User Modifications

Mark Tilden designed the Robosapien to be easily modified or hacked. The electronics inside the toy are easily accessed and clearly labeled. A growing community of hackers have devoted themselves to adding new functionality to the robot. Some hacks have added a live video camera, others an LED belt that displays text, headlights, speech synthesis, a "flamethrower" (a small torch) and more.

Modified Robosapiens playing a soccer game.

[edit] Soccer

At the Robocup German Open 2005 tournament two teams of three Robosapiens each played the first soccer match of humanoid robots worldwide. University of Osnabrück played against a team from Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg. Replacing the head by a PDA allowed the robot to perceive its environment with a camera, a control program could then react to this via the PDA's infrared sender.