WowWee Roboraptor Robotic Dinosaur
We are interested in the Lastest model of WowWee Roboraptor Robotic Dinosaur from amazon and I read about that ,I think that wonderfull.
BuZZ from Customer Shopping
robo raptor
This is robot is fun to use, because it can walk, move its mouth, and play games. It is best to use it on wood or tile, because it won't be able to walk on carpet, and it doesn't scratch the floors because it has pads on its toes. Sometimes it doesn't listen to your commands. It is a fun toy.
Animatronic robot dinosaurs FTW!!!!!!
First off I'd like to start by saying that Youtube is loaded with hundreds of RoboRaptor videos from owners all over the world, do a little research and check some of those out before you buy, if you like what you see in those videos you will probably love the toy, if you don't like what you see in those videos.... then DONT BUY IT.....DUH!!!!!
Now, onto the review, for a toy that costs under $200, there's alot of technology crammed into this little guy, and at under $50 this toy is a nerds dream come true(the same can be said for the entire Robosapien line). You got your realistic(Biomorphic) head neck and tail animations, bipedal walking motion, sterosonic sound sensors, infrared vision sensors, touch sensors, beam tracking, a wicked looking remote that any gamer would feel right at home with, autonomous action with 3 *moods* that will affect it's behavior while exploring, and a good enough size and loud enough speaker to really torment your pets with, all of this behind a good set of rubber teeth and claws.... what more could you possibly ask for????
Lets move onto the finer points and i'll try to break things down the best I can feature by feature with my own ratings for each feature.
1: Walking action - 3.5 out of 5 stars.... Roboraptor has 3 walking speeds(walk, run, and stalking), all use a sort of shuffling action and a weight transfer system to gain traction with each foot, On smooth flooring this works out great, he can glide across my kitchen with more grace than a ballarina on speed, rough flooring or low pile carpet slows him down considerably, and medium to high pile carpeting or grass brings him to a complete halt, causing him to walk in place and even fall over if he lunges forward to bite.
2: Animation(personality) - 5 out of 5 stars.... Easily the Roboraptors strongest point, the way he cocks his head, rotates his neck, swings his tail, bursts into a run to pursue his prey, the sniffing action, the roars, and the grunts all come together to form one of the most realistic robot dinosaur toys you'll ever see, I'd say almost on par with a Disney animatron... and thats just in hunting mode!!! In playfull mode this little guy will greet your every action just like a little puppy dog that's happy to see you, wagging his whole body, playfully lunging forward as if to bite, if you touch his chin sensor he will nuzzle your hand, if you put something in his mouth he will play *tug of war*, touch a tail sensor and it's robobutt up in the air and wagging his tail.... about as cute as a robotic dinosaur could ever be. In cautious mode he actually appears nervous and very weary of anything that approaches, if he's not sure about an object he'll back away, or he may nearvously move forward to investigate.... even though the Roboreptile is a little faster and more agile and a bit more aggressive, for me Roboraptor wins hands down for personality.... if there is any sense of humor that resides in your soul what so ever, you will laugh the first few times you see Roboraptor *exploring* his environment!
3: Control - 3.5 out of 5 stars.... I have to admit I was a little disappointed in this department, you can control Roboraptors basic functions and modes with the remote, however it lacks alot of the preprogrammed animations and programming options that the original Robosapien V1 remote had, infact to the best of my knowledge Roboraptor cannot be programmed at all by the remote, it seems that with Roboraptor you're trading off programability for autonomy(which we'll get to later)... the remote does have a demo function that will take you through all of Roboraptors various animations, but you cannot control individual animations. The remote doesn't really pack in as much function as i'd like, but what functions it does provide are easily accessable and the remote is very ergonomically designed, and it does provide three functions that Robosapien didnt have, those are... Mood select, Free Roam, and Follow that pickle. Mood select is self explanitory and simply allows you to switch between the robots 3 different moods. Free Roam lets you manually switch Roboraptor into his autonomous mode. Follow that pickle shines a green beam of light onto the ground that RoboRaptor will follow, if he's in hunting mode he will hunt the beam as if he wants to eat it, this is a cool way to control Roboraptor, but you have to shine the beam a few feet in front of him in order for him to see it.
4: Autonomy - 5 out of 5 stars.... It may surprise you that i've rated this feature so high while others are saying such things as "roboraptor is dumb" and "roboraptor doesn't really do anything"... so on and so forth, however before I explain my rating let me fill you in on a little history about Roboraptors creator and the principals and theories behind Roboraptors version of "Autonomy".
Mark Tilden is the man behind Roboraptor and the entire line of Robosapien toys, this man has worked as a robotics engineer for NASA, and as the Technology advisor for the Bill Clinton administration, he played a big role in pioneering the principals of "Biomorphic Robotics", and brought the first toy robot based entirely on these principals to market(Yes I mean RoboSapien!)... this guy KNOWS his robots!!! He's a likeable and colorful character that wears a really cool hat, he's sorta like the *Indiana Jones* of robotics, both by nature and appearence, he's very public oriented and always willing to answer questions and help the amatuer robotics community in whatever way he can, in fact he designed the entire Robosapien line of toys to be fully *hackable*... his goal??? To bring sophisticated robotics to the average person at a reasonable price!
Now onto the principals behind Roboraptors "intelligence" and the principal by which all of the Robosapien line was designed.... Biomorphic robotics is a concept originally concieved by Rodney Brooks and heavily pioneered by Mark Tilden, it is basically an approach to autonomy that prefers the use of sensors placed in areas that mimic thier biological counterpart over the use of powerfull microprocessors and sophisticated logic programming, for instance if you want a Biomorphic robot to *see* you would put sensors or cameras in a location where the real animals eyes would normally be, same goes for hearing and touch... one of the primary arguments for the use of Biomechanical robotics as an approach to autonomy over the more conventional logic and microprocessor approach is... Why does a robot need to think about and contemplate it's decisions and its environment when instead it could be out doing and exploring? This principal is elaborated on in much more detail than I could ever provide in Rodney Brooks classic write up on the subject entitled "Elephants Don't Play Chess."
If you've read this far I'm hoping you've gained atleast some insight into my decision to rate the Roboraptor so high in Autonomy, it's got all the right sensors in all the right places, but let's get down into the nitty gritty.... to put the Roboraptor into autonomous mode you can either wait a few minutes without hitting any buttons on the remote, or you can manually put it into autonomous mode by holding down the shift key and pressing the demo/roam button, but to be honest the autononmy is so well integrated into the system that it's hard to tell when it ISN'T being autonmous! Motion sensing, sound detection, touch sensing, and object avoidance are all active EVEN when the robot is being controlled, I found it really interesting that its hard to get the Roboraptor to hold still long enough to give it any commands on the remote, this little guy REALLY WANTS to go off and do his own thing, the infrared sensors are really top notch and very sensitive for a robot in this price range, best i've seen in fact, this enables him to see and avoid(or attack) even thin objects that you would never imagine him being able to see, also waving your hand in front of his face in hunting mode is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, Roboraptor will behave and interact with objects differently in autonomous mode depending on which mood he is in, sometimes Roboraptor will become fixed on an object and just wont leave it alone, he'll bite at it, nuzzle it, sniff it and just keep investigating it until he finds something more interesting to play with. If you make a sharp sound(such as a hand clap), Roboraptor will swing his head around to see what it was and then go back to whatever he was doing, if the sound persists he will break off of what he's doing and walk in the direction of the sound in order to further investigate. Roboraptor avoids walls and other objects like a pro thanks to his extra sensitive infrared sensors, though sometimes his ungainly bulk will cause him to get hung up as he attempts to turn around and walk away..... In my opinion Rodney Brooks and Mark Tilden had it dead on, because though the Roboraptor may not actually be "thinking", it's VERY hard to tell otherwise.... Roboraptor is a DOER, not a thinker!!!! He doesn't need to stare at a wall and try to figure out what it is, all he needs to do is decide if he wants to avoid or attack it.... and that my friends is Biomorphic Autonomy in a nutshell.
5: Battery life - 2 out of 5 stars.... This is one of Roboraptors weakpoints, and had to be addressed in later models of the Robosapien line, 6 double A batteries give you about an hour and a half of play, so if you play with Roboraptor alot, in a years time you'll have spent all of your college tuition/car/beer/hooker/rent/insurance money just trying to keep yourself in batteries! It pays to invest in rechargables!!!
6: Durability - 3 out of 5 stars.... While Roboraptor seems to be durable enough to survive normal play, I couldn't imagine him lasting very long through rough play, in the hands of young children, at the mercy of a large hyper dog, or in the hands of a clumbsy fool(like me :/). The plastic Roboraptor is constructed of doesn't seem nearly as tough as the plastic from Robosapien, the legs would be my greatest concern, they dont have much give to them and seem like they could be easily broken if he was dropped or fell off a table a couple times.
Well..... That's about it, all in all I give the Roboraptor a 5 out of 5 stars, while he may lack in a few areas, he's cool where it counts! Thanks for reading this insanely long winded review(possibly the longest in the history of amazon.com!), I hope it was helpfull, and not too painfully boring! As i stated at the beginning of this review, actions speak louder than words... GO WATCH THE VIDEOS! Do NOT buy until you've done the research.... I hate the reviews here where the people appearently have no idea what they're buying and then whine "it doesn't do what I thought it would do"..... it's a TOY robotic dinosaur, what did you THINK it would do? Fetch your slippers and read you the Sunday funnies?!?!?!?!
Yikes
This is my second review of this product - the first one didn't make it through.
I can't for the life of me figure out how this product has such a good rating. I was able to get it to walk in place for about a minute and then fall over. Luckily, I tried this out before rapping it as a gift (I returned it).
About WowWee Roboraptor Robotic Dinosaur detail
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2649 in Toys & Games
- Brand: Wow Wee
- Model: 8095
- Released on: 2006-06-12
- Dimensions: 33.00" h x 12.00" w x 10.00" l, .2 pounds
Features
- With his advanced artificial intelligence personality, realistic biomorphic motions, direct control and autonomous behaviors, the age of the dinosaur has truly returned.
- Fluid bi-pedal motion: walking, running and predatory gaits. Realistic body movements: turning head and neck with whipping tail actions. Three distinct moods: hunter, cautious and playful.
- Multi-sensory: touch sensors in his tail, chin and tongue. Sonic sensors can detect the location of sharp sounds. Infra-red vision system detects objects in his path or approaching (when he is stationary).
- Playful Jaws that play pulling games. "Laser" tracking technology: trace a path on the ground with the remote and he will follow it. Visual and Sonic guard mode. Responds to commands from Robosapien V2.
- 8 and Up
Product Description
This giant, 32" long dinosaur roars to life with realistic motions and advanced artificial intelligence.
- Advanced artificial intelligence personality
- Realistic biomorphic motions
- 3 motions: walking, running and predatory gait
- 3 distinct moods: hunter, cautious and playful
- Responds with mood specific behavior and sounds
- Responds to touch and sounds
- Infrared vision system detects objects in his path
- Powerful jaws let Roboraptor play pulling games
- Laser tracking technology "sees" motion
- Responds to commands from Robosapien™ V2
- Videogame style controller
- 40+ preprogrammed functions
- Remote control and autonomous "free- range" behavior modes
- Available in White
- 90-day manufacturer's warranty
Safety warning: This product contains small parts that may present a choking hazard for young children.
Amazon
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