RoboCommunity - Latest Articles

WowWee Robosapien V2 and Go-Robo Controller Bring Learning to Life in Nottingham, UK

Peter Redmer

At the Nottingham e-Learning Centre, Janet Simner has been introducing a group of year 8 pupils to a 60cm tall programmable humanoid robot called Robosapien V2. Shortlisted for the ‘Primary & Secondary Hardware’ category of the 2008 BETT Awards is a rather intimidating humanoid robot called Robosapien V2. Intimidating for the teacher, that is; for the pupils it is pure engagement, fun and excitement that contains a wealth of opportunities for learning about systems, control and programming. The RSV2’s (as the robot’s nicknamed) provides an opportunity for learning about programming without using a computer. It contains a wealth of sensors, motors and pre-programmed actions and reactions that have a huge potential for lessons, though it’s necessary to take a while playing with the robot and working through the resources and User Guide before introducing it to the pupils. The robot has a very wide range of actions, functions and programmed responses that take a while to master. [Click image to view entire image gallery!] The centre had eight RSV2’s shared between sixteen mixed ability pupils in a double-size classroom. Eight RSV2’s in a line at the front of the class is an impressive sight and from the start the pupils’...

FlyTech Bladestar by WowWee - Hands-On Review

milw — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:39:59 GMT

9 word summary: It flies, it's fun, and the kids love it. This is my hands-on review of the Flytech Bladestar, covering how to assemble it, charge it, and get it in the air. WowWee FlyTech Bladestar: What It Is Bladestar is a new type of rotary-wing flying toy, with onboard infrared sensors to allow avoidance of ceilings and walls. The Bladestar is designed so the entire unit spins, driven by two opposing high speed props. The lifting blades are hinged, and constructed of a tough plastic that can withstand (the inevitable) bumps and scrapes. Bladestar receives infrared signals from the hand-held remote control, allowing the pilot to control vertical movement by a sliding throttle adjustment, and to make the Bladestar move forward, backward, left or right relative to the remote by directional push buttons. As with the Flytech Dragonfly, the remote also serves as a recharger, with the cable hidden beneath the right cover. (Click on images for larger version!) Bladestar is packaged in a re-usable plastic carrying case, and includes 2 spare props and a spare set of plain wings. The cardboard wrapper is printed to indicate whether the Dragon pattern (red) wings or Flame pattern (orange) are...

RoboPanda Disassembled - A Look Inside This Friendly Robotic Bear

Nocturnal — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:29:34 GMT

Allow me to introduce you to my RoboPanda, this is him, and thats more than a gleam in his left eye! but more on that later. You will be happy to hear that Wow Wee's resident deranged mental patient is still alive and well, designing packaging. So if you buy a RoboPanda, you won't be getting him out of the box in a hurry. The recommended extraction method is as usual, a sharp knife, a pair of wire cutters and time. Unfortunately I am a little old for the singing and story telling aspect of things, but I am sure that as a young child I would have loved to have one of these to play with. RoboPanda comes with these helpful little stickers attached to show you the location of his touch sensors. My favourite sticker, just in case you didn't read the box, or the manual, or notice the obvious battery hatches, is there to remind you that you need batteries. This is the TV commercial for the RoboPanda. Despite the ad, and the safety features built in to the RoboPanda, I would not recommend letting your small child run around the house carrying one....

Evolution of the WowWee FlyTech Bladestar

Michelle C — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:21:37 GMT

The first 4 FlyTech BladestarTM designs were all different configurations of rotors and motors, but #5 and #6 (pictured here) used the configuration pictured here. It's very heavy at 18 grams (0.63 ounces), and also quite large, around 45cm (17.7 inches) in diameter. Underside of FlyTech Bladestar #6. Shows two small washers added for gyroscopic stability, later replaced by aluminum foil. FlyTech Bladestar #7. This one is much smaller than #6 -- only weighs 6 grams (0.2 ounces) and 25 cm (9.8 inches) in diameter. Underside of FlyTech Bladestar #7. You can see how tiny the battery and brains are. FlyTech Bladestar #7. Another view of FlyTech Bladestar #7. This one was later retrofitted to be able to detect the ceiling, making it the first semi-autonomous flyer. Early circuit board used in FlyTech Bladestar #8. Powered by an Atmel Tiny chip. It’s only 20mm (0.8 inches) in diameter! FlyTech Bladestar #8 with second revision brain, larger motors, and battery. Weighs 10 grams (0.353 ounces) and flight times over 11 minutes on a charge! The underside of FlyTech Bladestar #8. FlyTech Bladestar #9 was the first one to get a body and proper brain with a new pcb. First time both...

WowWee Robosapien Turned Cylon - How To Make Your Own

swebb51 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:15:11 GMT

I bought one of the chrome Robosapiens , and thought, "Hey this would make a cool Cylon!". Robosapien V1 as Robo-Cylon (70's photoshoot edition!) The circuit used to make the Cylon Eye can be found here on the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories website. Its fairly straight forward to mod this for use in an RSV1. The original design uses one circuit to create the eye, I split it into 3 parts for ease of fitting. Theres the Timer circuit, the low pass driver circuit and the LED circuit: Timer circuit, Low Pass Driver circuit, and LED Eye circuit The Timer and Driver circuit were fitted into the chest cavity. Opening the head itself was the trickiest part as the rear panel of the head is glued in place. For me, trying to open the head resulted in lots of chips and scratches, fortunately none of the chrome was damaged and only a black permanent marker was needed to clean up the rest. You need to remove the original eyes and rewire the IR sensor in the top. The RED, BLACK and WHITE wires from the IR go to the GREY, BLACK and WHITE cables that run to the original eye...

WowWee Chatterbot Review: Hilarious, Wacky, and Customizable, Too

Peter Redmer — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:57:45 GMT

I'm sure that you have your own desktop companion, and if you don't - you should! They're fun and they often take on a personality all their own. If you have a wild imagination, like I do, even the inanimate ones can be pretty fun. In this photo you can see my tireless companion Piplup, my rotating trout, and my desktop Death Star. Now, I hadn't necessarily been longing for a more vibrant partnership with my computer desk baubles, but when the WowWee Chatterbot arrived at my doorstep, I was intrigued. The Chatterbot is intended to bring the desktop companion to life, and interact with how you use your computer. Now, I won't have to imagine anymore that my clever penguin was talking to me, making rude noises, and commenting on my word choices... I have a desktop buddy that can do it "for real!" So, let's see how it works, shall we? Opening Up the WowWee Chatterbot - Dog/Cat Dog/Cat, the model I received, took a moment to decipher. There's a large bulldog trouncing a black cat in her own litterbox - how rude! At first, I thought the cat was male, but turned out to be female -...

The Arduino Microcontroller - An Introduction

Rudolph — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:57:08 GMT

The Arduino is a microcontroller prototyping platform. This platform includes the hardware device, built around the Atmel ATmega168 microcontroller, and an easy-to-use cross-platform IDE (Integrated Development Environment) using a C-style programming syntax. Apparently intended for a Physical Computing audience, the Arduino should also be an easy way of adding a bit of extra "smarts" to simple robotics projects. Before getting into the good stuff, a little bit about who I am and why I'm here, followed by what you can expect to glean from this small series of articles. In real life I am a cabinet maker. Not an electronics engineer, not a roboticist, I don't have a degree in anything. Just a regular Joe who likes fiddling with things, taking things apart, building things, breaking things. I've been interested in general robotics for many years, mostly for their entertainment value. After playing with various Wowwee products I finally convinced myself it would be fun to design and build my own toy robot. Not "better" than any current toy robot offerings, just different. Having played a bit with BEAM robotics I knew I wanted a little more "intelligence" in my toy, so the obvious solution was to use some kind...

Roboquad Electroluminescent Wire/Laser Mod

milw — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:32:25 GMT

This is the electroluminescent wire mod that I'm doing on my Roboquad. We got the EL wire from VibeLights , in both blue and purple, along with a mini-inverter power supply. I have also changed the fore and aft animation LEDs to blue, and the outboard face LEDs to yellow. After considering various options for anchoring the EL wire, I settled on using some 24 gauge craft wire wrapped around the EL wire. Twisting the ends made a nice anchor that could go through a small hole in the Roboquad shell. After taking the top shell off, I drilled small holes all way around the rim of the lower shell for the tie wires to go in, about every 1.5-2". I'm working my way around, using a loop of wire with the ends threaded through the hole and then twisted inside the shell. After twisting, I nip off the ends and bend the twisted portion down so the loop is tight, and then apply a drop of CA (cyanoacrylate, crazy glue) to the wire on the inside. Here's a test of the EL wire with McReptile looking on. This is running off of a 2x AA-powered mini-inverter. It's kind of...