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Tuesday February 19, 2008
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It seems a bit generous to refer to the Robonii as a robot, rather than, say, a smarter-than-average RC toy. However, as the press material for the device states, "Robonii is a smart robot full of personality. Its 'moods' come from a number of user-defined programs that allow it to adapt to its behavior." That's from a company called Robonica, so we'll have to assume that they know what they're talking about, right?
There were several Roboniis wheeling around a track set up on the lower floor of Toy Fair. The device is controlled by a combination of a remote and programmable software. Users can create games and download them directly to the device over USB. The Robonii also features an infrared sensor that detects objects and other robots.
The Robonii requires a whopping 12 AA batteries to run, and will be available in Q3 2008.
It also boasts a name that leads to fairly unfortunate advertising copy: for example, "[t]he more you play with your Robonii the more control it will allow you. And leave it alone for too long and it can get annoyed."
Come on kids, didn't your mother tell you not to neglect your poor Robonii?
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February 26, 2008 10:04 AM
Brian, thanks for stopping by our Robonii booth at the Toy Fair and for taking the time to write about it; we appreciate the pre-launch publicity. Since Robonii is not only a new product, but a new concept, I thought it appropriate to comment. For the record, Robonii will not be offended if it is referred to as a 'smarter-than-average R/C toy', as long as the term 'smarter' features somewhere! With its Atmel processor, infrared situational awareness, touch sensors and inter-robot RF communications it certainly qualifies as a pretty smart R/C toy. So smart that one can be forgiven for calling it a robot; it can - after all - sense and react intelligently to its environment and be programmed to behave autonomously.
Your use of the term 'whopping' with reference to the 12 AA batteries is fully justified; it is a lot! We used rechargeable batteries at the Toy Fair, though, and got more than 4 hours worth of constant driving from Robonii's set of 6 batteries before we had to recharge. The remote controller and electronic base station can run for more than 2 days on their sets of 4 and 2 batteries respectively.
Johan Poolman, CEO, Robonica