[Reprinted with the kind permission of TechCast Network.]

Just two days before Christmas 2006, a big heavy box landed on the door step of the TechCast Network office. With as much excitement and enthusiasm as a small boy on Christmas day, I promptly yet carefully tore open the box to reveal the coolest toy I’ve ever come across.

Make no mistake about it, this sophisticated product of years of research and development with the most advanced sensory technology and servo motors is no toy….hold on a second. It is a toy! The Robosapien RS Media from the elf-like creatures at WoWeee Robotics is the latest and greatest invention to come out of their labs.

I’ve not had the chance to browse Toys “R” Us lately, but I’m without doubt that this is the most sophisticated and technologically advanced robotics toy ever to be released.

Featuring a 2-inch LCD chest mounted screen, stereo speakers and rear sub-woofer, head mounted digital camera, Linux powered, Java compatible, audio sensing technology, programmable functionality, audio, image and video playback and with expandable memory up to 1GB, and that’s just the start of it. There’s more to it than that.

History

The Robosapien RS Media has come from the development and progress of toy-like robots over the past few years. It is the product of British-born, Mark Tilden who has worked for a little known organisation called NASA as well as being one of the consultants for the Tomb Raider movie.

Tired of building big, boring and expensive robots, he wanted to put fun in to robotics, so he applied all his wisdom in to creating an affordable yet intelligent robot, that was safe to use and appeals to the mass audience.

His goal? To impress today’s seven year old kid that is surrounded by the likes of Nintendo, PlayStation, XBOX and iPods.

He has since sold over 50 million units since its launch in 2004.

Technology

The specification list for the RS Media is simply stunning, whilst its no PlayStation 3, this robot simply wipes the floor of any other robot of equivalent cost on the market today.

Building on the success of the Robosapien V2, the RS Media incorporates (hence the name), more media-centric functionality. The 1.9-inch TFT screen features a 176 x 132 resolution display which allows for video and photos to be taken and displayed, audio playback or for playing on the built-in games.

The motion tracking camera has the ability to take photos and record MPEG4 video, but it’s also a more clever use. One of the built-in programmed functions is called the Guard mode. Put your RS Media in to this state and it will sense any audio with its two room-sensitive microphones as well as movement with its camera and activates its alert system.

It’s no replacement for a rabid dog or a proper alarm system, but it just demonstrates some of the fun uses of this technology, and no there isn’t a small being inside dressed like a robot.

Press the Y button on the wireless remote and the RS Media goes in to Free Roam mode, where the robot will start walking and interacting with its environment. The camera that is mounted in to the head of the robot will sense objects and furniture so that it doesn’t bump in to them. The sensors in his feet will also detect objects that it has bumped in to and stop.

The servos that are used for movement does offer quite a large degree of flexibility with the ability to grip objects, move its head, make it lean forward, to the side and back, as well as wave its arms. The issues start to arrive when the RS Media tries to pick something up. The object that you want it to pick up has to be positioned and shaped rather perfectly otherwise it will struggle to pick it up or wont pick it up.

Sensors are built in to the hands so that it knows when it’s picked it up successfully, if not it will provide you with some witty audio feedback.

To add to the entertainment value of the previous generation of Robosapien’s, the RS Media incorporates a wide range of multimedia features. These include mp3 and video playback. Internally, the robot can only store 40MB on its flash memory, but you can add an SD card up to 1GB in size for storing your music, videos and photos. The audio playback is the most impressive with two stereo speakers and a sub-woofer, the volume is surprisingly high. It’s not going to replace your home stereo system, but the quality and the volume is more than adequate for use during play time.

Of course, no robot would be complete without the ability to walk. I don’t think there’s any nice way to say this, but I certainly hope that future revisions of the Robosapien have better servos in the legs for walking, if you could call it that. The best way of describing the RS Media’s ability to walk is that it waddles more than anything. The servos in the legs allow it to rock it from side to side which gradually makes it move forward or backwards. This means that if there is even the slightest of obstacle in front of it, such as a slightly raised door frame or carpet on wooden floor, it will struggle to get over it, and most likely will stop and turn around.

It’s also painfully slow to watch it walk from one place to another despite the offering of two speed walking paces. It feels like they have created this amazing kit that does pretty much everything that we want, but decided to cripple it by not by crippling its walking feature.

Included in the package is the CD which includes the software for programming your Robosapien with three main functions. The BodyCon editor, PErsonality editor and Media organizer.

The BodyCon editor allows you to record your own preset animations and then upload them to the RS Media for playback. The interface is relatively simple and a 3D visual representation of the robot shows the exact movements. You can also attach audio to these movements.

The Personality Editor gives you complete control over the the BodyCon saves, the different preset events such as the Free Roam mode, Camera functionality and you can tie all these together with the Macro Editor. Whilst the RS Media comes with preset personalities (SpaceBot, Billy Joe, Butler and the default RS Media).

The Media Organizer allows the upload and download of audio, video and images to and from the RS Media, essentially a basic synchronisation application for it.

Fun

When it comes to having fun with the RS Media, it will either knock the socks of any kid, teen or adult, or it will scare the heck out of them. At 57 cm (22.5 inches) in height, it’s no small toy, and when you pull this thing from the box, it’s an incredible sight.

Switching it on for the first time and seeing the flashing red eyes and then seeing and hearing it come to life with its bold personality, the RS Media has an element of fun factor to it but what I wanted to know was, will it last?

The pre-programmed movements and audio feedback lasts only a week or two, and perhaps another week for showing to your friends, but after that you have to spend a bit of time and effort to learn how to program the robot to do your will.

The Future

To further enhance the functionality of the RS Media, an unpublished feature of the robot allows owners of the Lego Mindstorm NXT to be attached to the back of the RS Media, to further allow enhancements to the Robosapien. That means more programming flexibility and more tricks hidden up its sleeves.

New models are reportedly to be even bigger at over four feet and have segway wheels with the ability to connect to the internet and respond to voice commands. At the rate that the Robosapien is advancing at, we can expect to see it putting the kettle on, cooking the dinner, ironing your clothes and look after the kids.

Evaluation

The Robosapien RS Media represents what we dreamed of having when we were kids. Well the good folk at WoWee Robotics have brought that dream to life and now it’s possibly to own one without taking out a second mortgage.

Whilst for me, the RS Media failed to keep me entertained after the novelty factor wore off, I believe this product has real potential to inspire kids to start programming at an early stage. This would make the perfect excuse for cool kids to get back on to the computers. A new age of tinkering is dawning and this is just the start.

Technologically, the Robosapien RS Media is a magnificent engineering feat by both its designers and programmers. From the witty audio feedback to the flexibility of the robot itself, there’s lots of hidden surprises that you have to unlock using the remote control, and even then when you’re tired of seeing those, there’s the ability to reprogram it with your own movements and audio.

One of the first ‘toys’ to hit the market with such a diverse range of technology incorporated in to it, yet designed to be non-geeky and as uncomplicated as possible, the RS Media makes it suitable for a wide range of ages, and I don’t mean just the kids. Adults can get with the RS Media and perhaps take it beyond what its original programming intended.

The TechCast Network gives the Robosapien RS Media the TechCast Recommended Award. We can’t wait for the next generation to come out!