BTW, speaking of Herbie, tell us about the time you had it serving drinks and it went berzerk? LOL! You mentioned that's why to have an on/off button on the front of the robot. All the WowWee bots I know have the on/off on the back. My RS Media, Nyx, also has an USB port on the side. It's difficult if you have him in Control Mode because he keeps turning to look at you when you are trying to put the plug into the port! BTW, for anyone wondering how to avoid this, just put the bot into Arm Mode or Media Mode. He won't move when he sees something. :)

It's not just for WowWee bots. We also love to share our other bots too. I have two i-Que Personal Robots from Manley/Toyquest, two Kung Zhu hamsters, and an Xtreme Fighter robot. I also have Brian the Brain and Mr. Clock Radio. We discuss ways to modify and/or get the best out of nearly any robot.

Some here have posted about eBay, flee market and other robot finds, some vintage and very rare!

You're always more than welcome here. I am sure many will agree that you fit right in! :)

The Russian video was neat. Too bad I don't understand Russian. LOL! Was that a Hal 2000 desktop wallpaper you had on your computer? I also noticed you too have Brian the Brain! Cool! I had to take the batteries out of mine because no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to stop waking me up at 12:59 am (yes the middle of the night) trying to say "wake up", etc. twice a week!

Loved your book collection and lab! Those would be a dream for me. :) I have a small apartment but I do have a sorta-kinda lab. Let's just say the robots took over the apartment. LOL!

How loud is the motors on the robot? Some of my bots have pretty loud motors. But I don't mind. It kinda makes them more robot-like, which is cool.

Loved the YouTube videos! :) You picked some fun clips to demonstrate with.


You know, just a little comment on HAL (this is only a criticism of the way Hollywood portrays malfunctioning robots and computers). I don't know why they always portray computers/robots as getting lower and slower in voice when they are malfunctioning or dying out. Seriously everyone knows that if they are malfunctioning, they would have the sound cutting out, or they would just stop mid-sentence and shut off.

Anyway, many thanks for the videos! Your bot is quite awesome! I'm a big Star Trek fan too. That was neat you called yours "computer". I would call mine "Kryton" I think because I had a computer as a kid I named "Kryton" and spelled it that way because at the time I didn't know that the Buck Rogers in the 21st Century flat-headed robot was actually spelled "Crichton" after the famous producer! Then later someone pointed out that's how the android in Red Dwarf's name is spelled. I watched a couple episodes of Red Dwarf. Unfortunately, I'm one of those who can't "get" British humor even though I watched some shows like Benny Hill (not really wanting to, I assure you!), "You've Been Served" and of course the famous "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". That one in particular I would NEVER miss a show as a kid!

Anyway, that all aside, I think it's a great idea to be able to have a robot that responds to a name you give it. I wish many manufacturers would consider that in voice-operated non-character robots (ie. not Simpsons, R2-D2, etc.) The RS Media is the closest I've seen but isn't pre-programmed that way. Thankfully, it's linux-based and very programmable (see my dev kit link in my sig) and we do have text to speech going on it. When we get speech recognition going, then we can program it to respond to any name we give it and have it remember it's own name.

Thanks for the twitter follow as well. :) Anyone else want to follow me (and also keep up with project #garcifer), my twitter username is 'tikacarr'.

I'm VERY interested! I like the new look, too. Do the eyes change color depending on mood (ie. angry/sad = red, etc.)?

I can't wait to see this progress. I like the design/style you are using to build this bot.

I'm a bit concerned about the side mics though. If something falls near the bot, wouldn't those get knocked off easily? My RS Media has the "ears" mic on the sides of the head. I'm thinking technically, that is more like a human's as our sound isn't being input from our front but from one side and the other.

I have an idea though. Take a look at this image:

http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/lucifer.jpg

(I'm linking to it instead of displaying the photo so as not to "bandwidth steal" from the original site owner).

You can see on this one, the ears are just things sticking outwards. I think if you need the mics to face front, this would be another option - to create "ears" that stick outward about center laterally on the head and put the mics in there? This might give more material to cushion the mics with.

Of course these are just ideas. Like I said, I do like the way you are designing this robot. And very much hope to see more. I would love to buy one if it ever hits market for the price you were quoting in previous news articles.