by Lem Fugitt

EXCLUSIVE! t only 6.5 inches tall, literally small enough to hold in ing three years ago when the project first started, was to create a the palm of your hand, yet capable of performance preassembled, preprogrammed humanoid robot with 17 degrees of A exceeding robots that cost three or four times its price, freedom, capable of user programmable kung fu and gymnastic the TOMY i-SOBOT humanoid robot is destined to dramatically moves, with a strong yet engaging personality, sound effects, back-

change the toy and hobby robot market completely when it hits ground music and advanced voice command recognition.

store shelves in the U.S. this October—just in time for Christmas. There were several key factors that made it possible for them to

We had the exclusive opportunity to exhaustively test one of the achieve their goal and give birth to the innovative i-SOBOT robot. i-SOBOT final pre-production i-SOBOT robots outside the TOMY labs for sev- The most important factor was reducing the size, something A revolution in a small package eral days in mid-June, and we came away totally impressed. Our that Japanese toy manufacturers have traditionally excelled at. evaluation sample was fully configured for the U.S. market and con- By making the robot considerably smaller than other humanoids

tained the latest firmware, including English language voice recog- on the market, the required servo torque and power consump-

nition. The TOMY engineers indicated that there may still be some tion, as well as the overall robot material and assembly costs,

minor firmware changes based on their beta testing, but confirmed were dramatically reduced.

that the unit we tested faithfully represents the robots set to invade At the same time, TOMY was able to take advantage of their

the U.S. this fall. accumulated knowledge of miniature motor, clutch, and servo

design as well as high-volume/low-cost BUCKING THE TREND QUICK SPECS product manufacturing and distribution. ROBOT: TOMY i-SOBOT The accepted humanoid robot development The history of TOMY sheds light on this DIMENSIONS: 165mm x 96mm x 67mm trend has been to keep adding more and WEIGHT: 350 grams reservoir of knowledge. more features and functionality while rais- SERVOS: (17) high quality custom-designed Tomy, originally established in 1924, ing the price at the same time. servo motors with built-in clutches and dedicated cpu controllers merged with – another Japanese Unfortunately, the result has been that CPUS: (19) 1 central, 1 voice recognition toy giant – in early 2006. While the two fewer and fewer people could enjoy the and 17 servo controllers companies merged the i-SOBOT project SENSORS: (2) gyro sensors for balance humanoid robot experience. The current REMOTE CONTROL: IR was temporarily put on hold, but the engi- price for a midrange robot kit with 17 OPERATING MODES: (4) Remote control, neering team, lead by Kimi Watanabe – the degrees of freedom starts at just under Program, Special Action (8 preinstalled division general manager, and Yosuke complex actions), Voice recognition with $1,000 and climbs to approximately $3,500 10 preprogrammed voice commands Yoneda—the deputy manager and chief or more for some of the advanced kits. BATTERIES: 3 AAA eneloop Nickel Hydride engineer, never lost faith in the robot. As it rechargeable included, or 3 AAA alkaline for Their performance is awesome and usually robot and 3 AAA for controller turned out, the merger brought even more includes karate moves, soccer kicks, and NOTES: Assembled and RTR out of the strength and robot know-how into play. box; 180+ preprogrammed actions that can even all out gymnastics. But the cost and be sequenced in Program Mode. Release Takara brought their robot design exper- user expertise required to assemble and date in U.S.: October 2007. Sales target tise based on numerous popular robot worldwide: 300,000. get them operating correctly often puts the related toys including , robots out of reach for most people. Yosuke Yoneda, deputy , Battle Beasts, and Walkie Bits. TOMY, with decades of experience as manager, start- Merging their knowledge with TOMY’s suc- ed the original one of the world’s top toy designers, real- i-SOBOT devel- cessful Zoids (1982), OMNIBOT robot opment project ized it was possible to create a fully func- in 2001, and series (1985), and the TXR-002 remote tional humanoid robot, ready to operate never lost faith in the project, controlled mobile robot, resulted in a right out of the box, at just $350. Their even when it With two built-in gyros, was put on hold development team unique in the world. i-SOBOT can maintain its development target, which seemed daunt- for a year and a balance even when executing half during the difficult gymnastics or merger. kung fu moves.

38 ROBOT MAGAZINE FALL 2007 39 TOMY i-SOBOT

a problem, but for most The SA-MODE (Special Action Mode), The battery I-SOBOT AT YOUR COMMAND ALIGNMENT AND ADJUSTMENT of us mere mortals it can as the name implies, contains a series of cover is held in In remote control mode it’s ready for com- Under normal use i-SOBOT shouldn’t rapidly become an exer- special action sequences like forward place with two screws. For petition with other family members or need to be adjusted, other than to replace cise in frustration, and rolls, backward rolls, playing an air power, the friends. The robot and IR remote supports and recharge the batteries. I-SOBOT only quickly spoils our pas- drum, and some totally hilarious animal robot uses three two separate control channels – selected requires a single tool – an included hex sion for using a product. imitations. There’s even one where the AAA eneloop via a switch on the back of the robot. With driver to undo the two screws that hold An advanced robot like i- tiny i-SOBOT does a great imitation of rechargable - its extensive selection of kung fu, karate the battery cover in place. SOBOT is no different. Giant Robot. teries, or stan- dard AAA alkaline batteries. The speaker is and soccer moves, staging local i-SOBOT In the rare case when the robot’s servos The TOMY engineers The VC-MODE (Voice Control Mode) mounted in a cavity directly below the batteries contests is sure to become popular. need to be realigned, the manual includes a knew that for the product allows you to command the robot verbal- and provides surprisingly good sound quality. In the limited time we had access to short procedure that covers adjusting the to be a success they ly, telling it to go forward, go backward, the robot we had a lot of fun playing a servo brackets using the hex tool with the would have to focus a lot tell you what’s up, and seven other inter- mini version of kick-the-can with a pair of robot in its alignment position. of attention on the design esting voice commands. small plastic dice, and controlling it of the remote control to One good example of TOMY’s atten- through a maze we laid out on the top of WORLD’S SMALLEST WALKING make it as easy and plea- tion to detail is the way the remote con- our desk. HUMANOID ROBOT? surable for the customer trol’s go button was designed to double We had just one i-SOBOT to play The i-SOBOT is unquestionably the as possible. Their solution as a replay button. Say you want to have with, but it was easy to imagine how world’s smallest commercial humanoid was to add a small LCD the robot do a soccer kick. You press 2, 2, much fun it would be to race two i- robot in volume production. The i- screen to the remote 3, B on the remote control keyboard, and SOBOTs against each other. Or, mark out SOBOT will likely set a new price/perfor- control giving immediate he kicks – but perhaps you didn’t have a square on the table, put one of the dice mance standard for commercial feedback to the user. the ball in quite the right position in front in the middle, then have two opposing i- humanoid robots that will be tough to The robot’s power and control channel selection switches are located That makes it easy to of his foot. Instead of having to key in the SOBOTs try to kick it across the other match for years to come. on the back of the robot’s body. The wire seen hanging down was for see what buttons have whole sequence again, with i-SOBOT all a last minute firmware change and will not be present in the produc- robot’s goal. The possibilities are endless. been pushed, or to scan you have to do is press go and the robot tion model. i-SOBOT is about much more than just WISH LIST through program seq- automatically repeats the last command. passive entertainment. The robot is We don’t want this review to sound like a uences, or to immediately It’s a small touch, but one that definitely engaging and challenges you to add your total i-SOBOT love fest. As much as we confirm the remote con- improves the quality of play and enjoy- creativity to its abilities. Using the remote are really excited about the robot, like all trol status. It puts the ment of the robot. control in program mode, you can create new products there is always some room users’ focus and attention i-SOBOT stands next to a KONDO KHR-1, the long program sequences of actions, one for improvement and some aspects we on playing with the robot SPEAK TO ME! original humanoid robot kit first offered for sale three years ago. Both robots feature 17 after another, to have the robot execute a didn’t like. Fortunately in this case all of instead of trying to strug- The i-SOBOT has a built-in microphone degrees of freedom, and note the significant dance sequence, or put on a mini-play. the negatives were relatively minor. gle with the remote. along with a CPU chip dedicated to voice difference in size. We were pleasantly surprised at the For example, the remote control pack- recognition. Our evaluation beta unit had robots’ run time. The set of fully charged aging is really boxy and doesn’t seem to FOUR MODES 10 English voice commands prepro- failed to recognize our voice command. Eneloop nickel hydride batteries that match the high tech i-SOBOT image and i-SOBOT has four basic grammed and had no trouble recognizing The first few times it doesn’t catch what came with i-SOBOT lasted for over one style. Some of the buttons on the remote operating modes that you our voice as long as we spoke slowly and you are saying, it will verbally tell you, hour of continuous operation – and we tended to stick from time to time, but access in sequence by clearly, fairly close to the robot. For some then the next time it will flash one of its were probably working it harder for our TOMY is aware of the problem and pressing the MODE button. of the commands there was a slight delay LED indicators instead of constantly evaluation than any normal use. We also expects to have it fixed before shipments The RC-MODE (Remote while the robot processed the voice com- repeating the same message. Tomy is cur- tested the robot with several sets of AAA start. Also, the wording on the home/can- Control Mode) is where mand, but it didn’t detract from the per- rently evaluating repositioning the micro- alkaline batteries and consistently cel button was small enough to require you directly control the formance at all. phone slightly to improve voice capture achieved around 40 minutes of operation reading glasses for those who use them. robot’s actions using the When the robot’s microphone was and recognition. under difficult testing conditions. Another issue for us is that after each joysticks and remote con- blocked by its head, or we stood back action the robot has to return to its stand- trol keys. The two joy- away from it quite a ways, it sometimes LET’S PLAY! ing home position stance. If it’s already sticks, used in conjunc- It’s a lot of fun to run i-SOBOT through standing it isn’t much of a problem and tion with buttons on the i-SOBOT’s hands have two adjustable fingers, i-SOBOT is equipped with two head mounted LEDs that indicate its preprogrammed actions, which you front of the control, allow and the whole hand can be rotated around the his operating modes and his moods. Many of the robot’s actions primary arm axis. It’s a good idea to check the can do immediately after removing it The i-SOBOT remote control has are soccer moves, including nice goal kicks by each foot. Notice you to have the robot finger positions before executing new actions from the box since it comes fully assem- great functionality. The LCD display how the robot shifts its center of gravity over the left foot during walk forward, backward, to avoid running the hands into other body bled and ready to go. We started by using is invaluable when creating the kicking motion using the gyro feedback to maintain perfect left/right, turn, control his parts and potentially damaging the robot. balance. the joysticks to drive it around the table complex programs for the robot. arms, and a myriad of top, then, moved on to keying in actions other moves. You can using the remote control. Each action is ADVANCED FUNCTIONALITY also key in command codes on the keys unique, and often surprising. For exam- that map to over 180 preprogrammed Today’s complex electronic equipment ple, the first time we keyed in 1, 2, 4, A actions. typically requires the user to memorize and the robot started imitating Borat we Using the P-MODE (Program Mode), Remote control icon and punch in long, involved command almost fell off our chairs laughing. By you can create and edit long sequences of for the Borat imita- sequences, often with no apparent logic coincidence, i-SOBOT also does an behind them, into a remote control. If actions to be executed on command. This tion— “Is nice, you extremely funny imitation of a certain like?” is very useful for constructing mini comic you’re an experienced video game fanat- popular red puppet character that’s routines, your own music videos, or short ic, used to hammering quickly through famous for falling down laughing. Kind dramas. five or 10 keys at a time, that might not be of a “Tickle Me, i-SOBOT!” routine.

40 ROBOT MAGAZINE FALL 2007 41 TOMY i-SOBOT

only takes a fraction of a second. But, if it’s lying down or in some other non- standing pose, it can take a while for it to go through all the motions to stand back up again. Kimi Watanabe, general manager of A FEW CAUTIONS the Seeds Product It’s important to keep i-SOBOT away Development Group, from table edges. It has no built-in edge is really excited about bringing the detection, and some of the actions cause it i-SOBOT and to move in unexpected directions. For follow-on products example, if you leave it alone for a couple to market. His wife minutes it will get bored and try to lie is creating special costumes for the down. If it happens near the edge of a robot. table, it could fall off. The remote control uses standard IR technology – similar to your television and stereo system remotes, but with slightly different codes to avoid any inter- ference. The remote will work well in standard size offices or rooms at home, but won’t work outside since the flood of IR in sunlight will swamp out its control possible, but it’s important to keep in and exercise, so the i-SOBOT has the feel- signals. The same thing may happen occa- mind that it is a small, somewhat delicate ing of doing isometric exercises. More sionally near large picture windows or device. Treat it gently and with respect than anything, they want i-SOBOT to be a other IR sources. and it will provide you with hundreds of lovely, friendly robot for people every- Like all humanoid robots, i-SOBOT hours of fun for years to come. where to enjoy and make an active part of likes a smooth, level surface to play on. It their life. doesn’t weigh enough to compress car- WHY “I-SOBOT”? pets or rugs the way humans do, so it’s In Japanese the word for love is “ai” WHAT’S NEXT? better to use it on a flat floor or table top. which is pronounced “I,” and robot fans There’s no committed release date yet, If it seems to keep falling over in the same are going to love i-SOBOT – at least that’s nor price, but the next addition to the i- direction all the time, chances are that the what TOMY hopes and expects. The SOBOT family will feature a head mount- surface is tilted in that direction. Japanese word for play is “asobu,” which ed video camera complete with 60-degree TOMY has gone to great lengths to could be pronounced “i-sobu,” and they pan capability and a wireless LAN con- make i-SOBOT as durable and reliable as wanted to give the feeling of animation nection. At that point you’ll be able to remotely see what the next generation i-SOBOT sees and control it’s movements via your PC or mobile phone. Battery limitations may put some restrictions on how useful the robot would be as a home security monitor – besides, what burglar would run in fear from a tiny robot no matter how loud it shouts at them? Still, it would be a lot of fun to experiment with, not to mention terrorizing the family cat or . We can hardly wait!

Visit www.robots-dreams.com for videos of i-SOBOT in action. —the editors

Links Robots-Dreams, www.robots-dreams.com TOMY Corp., www.tomy.com, (949) 955-1030 For more information, please see our source guide on pg. 97.

“Give me five private!” i-SOBOT does a series of push-ups, military style.

42 ROBOT MAGAZINE