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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 TOMY 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 Takara – 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 Transformers, robots out of reach for most people. Yosuke Yoneda, deputy Microman, 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 bat- 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.

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