RoboCommunity - WowWee Alive

Transforming WowWee Elvis to the Terminator Part 5: The Rebuild

GWJax — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:18:35 GMT

Welcome back! This project, as you can see, is a very complex one... but this is the fun part! Are you ready to finally see your WowWee Alive Elvis transform into the "Elvinator"? Then, read on...

PC To Elvis Interface Demo

Evilis — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:07:24 GMT

Hello All. I finished developing a PC to Elvis Alive interface and have a web article in the queue. Here is a demo. This web article just covers changes to the Elvis Alive CPU board to get a 34 pin ribbon cable ready to plug in a microcontroller board. From here you can use the microcontroller of your choice. My version has a RS-232 interface going to a PC. I'm hoping to detail the microcontroller board I did as well as the software for it in future articles. For the creation of animation sequences I plan to use midi events from a shareware midi sequencer that supports audio clips. The audio will be feed into the Elvis Alive front audio jack. The events can be routed to the microcontroller serial in via a midi to "PC Elvis" conversion/routing application on the PC directly from the midi sequencer. I also have plans to add a ISD4003 record/playback chip to the microcontroller inside Elvis Alive and have the microcontroller and the ISD4003 collect/store the events and the audio via just the audio input. This means tone encoding the events at the beginning of the audio track. This would allow Elvis Alive to...

Wow Wee Cubs: Great Girl's Toy

Robo, BG — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:33:03 GMT

Now this isn't my kind of bot, and I don't want to offend you by calling it a girls toy, but great move by Wow Wee. They will attract more attention from girls who like all the alive pets stuff. It could be great to help Wow Wee get some extra profits. Please leave me your thoughts on this topic.

What's the next evolution?

Michelle C — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:24:15 GMT

So I haven't posted a new entry in a while, and thought I should make up for it by getting requests from you guys... so here's my proposal: You guys tell me which WowWee product you want to see an "Evolution of" write up, and I'll make it happen. Polls are now open!

Inside The WowWee Alive Cubs: Part 2

Grandlarseny37 — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:39:45 GMT

And here it is... Part two! I was having file size issues so I had to split the article into two parts. Hope you enjoy the rest of the WowWee Alive Lion Cub dissection! This is a shot of the back of the cub's skull. You can see the head's touch sensor at the top. This is the bottom of the skull. The black piece is the bottom of the cub's jaw. Inside each ear is a small white sack that contains a single button (quick on/off/volume, and try me). This is a video of the cub in action after being totally skinned! After unscrewing the back of the skull and removing the head's touch sensor, you can access the single motor that controls the cub's movements. Here you can see the motor in action! The brains can be found on the back of the battery compartment. Also inside the battery compartment is the tilt sensor, but I was unable to get a picture of it - sorry! I was unable to get a close up picture of the circuit board that was neither overexposed nor blurry, so apologies about that one (dumb camera)! So there you have it. The...

Controlling WowWee's Alive Elvis Part 2 - Custom Cartridge

RetroPlayer — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:31:19 GMT

Testing out the theory proposed in the previous article required the assembly of a custom cartridge. There are a few choices to make when building a custom cartridge...

Who has, or is getting Alive Lion?

crmfghtr — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:53:55 GMT

As a dedicated Wowwee robot buyer I guess I will break down and get one of these buggers. I also like animals as much as I do robots so what the heck, I realize its geared for kids but surely Im not the only 43 year old working businessman that wants a Lion cub lol, right?

Elvis Animator Program

RetroPlayer — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:00:23 GMT

I am starting this thread to discuss my upcoming Elvis Animator program. This program will let you create and edit custom animations for Elvis, which you can then put on your modified cartridge to playback on the Elvis Alive! Animatronic bust. I am starting this thread because I am about half way through the major parts of the program, and am hoping to get some early feedback and suggestions for it. The Source code can be shared with anyone that knows how to program in VB, but I will be the main distribution point. So, I expect that anyone that gets the source and modifies it, does not attempt to package it and deploy it separately (at least until the status is release candidate, and then you can do whatever you want with the source code.) The program is being written in Visual Basic 6.0, which is a fairly obsolete language, but it all that I am familiar with right now for windows programming, except a little Delphi, for which I no longer have an IDE. I would definitely like some involvement from others seeking to port the program to other languages and working to make it as open platform...