Topic: Pleo rb, the first and last lifeform??? (Read 4511 times)

nicholasljy123 · « **on:** December 28, 2012, 01:50:57 AM »

Hi guys. For those of you who own a Ugobe pleo, you would have noticed that the box states that pleo is its very first lifeform. Although it has been handed to innvo, shoudn't they try to come up with fresh new ideas for another lifeform? The pleo was handed to them for a reason. They upgraded it to pleo rb, and then stopped. Is that all Innvo??? I think they should uphold the words.of Caleb Chung. The first lifeform, yes, but not the last. They got other.animals to ome up with. Just.after pleo was taken over by Innvo, they just Sold the rb and nothing else ! Remember how Ugobe went bankrupt? The should not be afraid to venture in the world of robotic lifeforms and continue inventing them, otherwise they really would go out of business. They.are.simply putting them selves at risk of bankrupcy. What if the world.stopped spreading and people do not know about pleo, would they get it?when they do close down. Who is.going to take over the making of pleo? If no other company will do that, our beloved.robot dinosaur would never be sold again. Please give your suggestions twhether Innvonshould make new lifeforms.
Nicholasljy123

Talon · « **Reply #1 on:** December 28, 2012, 04:19:44 PM »

I agree with you completely. Pleo is such a novel idea and I believe it should be explored further. If Innvo does make another robotic lifeform, I think it might sell better if it were an unusual lifeform- not just a cat or a dog. Perhaps a baby dragon or another type of dinosaur. Perhaps a prehistoric mammal like a Hyracotherium- the first known ancestor of the horse. They have an unimaginable canvass to work with! It's just the market for the product is so small and the consumer bass isn't very big yet.
Talon

RickyD1979 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 16, 2013, 07:48:04 AM »

Baby Dragon...now you talking my language

Talon · « **Reply #3 on:** January 16, 2013, 01:02:15 PM »

Hahaha! I was hoping someone other than me thought that was a neat idea. The Asian dragon might not be that difficult to produce. It wouldn't be that different from the pleo design. I mean the head would be a little skinnier, the neck and tail might need a little lengthening and maybe the body would need to lose a little bulk but I don't reason it would be that hard. To accomadate for larger motors perhaps to take the weight of the longer appendages, the height of the creature might need to increase a little. *scraches head* Oh well. I'm no robotics ingeneer what do I know? Still if I were Innvo and I had the funds, I would be considering the creation of another robotic lifeform soon before people lost interest. That's to say nothing for software updates and the resolving of hardware issues for their current product. I'm not bashing Innvo in the least, I'm just saying they could do more if they would just ask their public what they wanted in a robotic life form.
Talon

kat · « **Reply #4 on:** January 16, 2013, 03:36:21 PM »

Triceratops is my favorite dino so I would love a baby one of those. I also love the idea of a baby dragon

irbyma7297 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 16, 2013, 05:30:39 PM »

remember that two legged dinos like t-rex and raptors will be very, very difficult to make and have it move and look 'natural' t-rexes will also have the problem with moving heads, arms, etc.

RickyD1979 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 16, 2013, 11:22:13 PM »

Baby Triceratops also sounds great!!...im sorry for asking this here but can anyone help me im trying to post a pic from my pc and not sure how to do it i go to insert pic and it does this **

** sorry

kat · « **Reply #7 on:** January 17, 2013, 12:23:07 AM »

hey Ricky hopefully these tutorials can help

http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=176.0
http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=177.0
Basically you need to create a photo album in the gallery then upload your pics to it then you can copy and past the smg code into your post.

Kami · « **Reply #8 on:** January 17, 2013, 03:41:03 AM »

A baby dragon would be amazing. I'd love to see a 'serpent-style' dragon without legs or maybe with only vestigial legs (imagine it learning to 'walk'!) and something with wings as well. You could express a lot with wings!

As irbyma7297 pointed out, some of these things are really difficult to construct - some of you may have heard of Honda's ASIMO robot, which was millions of dollars in the making and still had an awkward habit of falling down stairs.

I suspect one of the other problems is just that making robots like Pleo is problematic, both in the difficulty of marrying technology and cuddly exteriors (like the skin-splitting problems with Ugobe Pleo) when you can get away with making something more traditionally robotic like an Aibo that people might even see as less of a 'toy' and be willing to spend more on, and in people being frankly suspicious of robots that are lovable. I suspect it may just be financially more sensible for Innvo to stick with the Pleo they have, or not to try too hard to come up with anything else. (I'd love to be wrong and find they've been coming up with a totally new adorable creature!)

I'm very much of the opinion though that the only way we're going to get more life forms of this kind, and especially ones we can tinker with and program ourselves, is to get "ordinary" people who are passionate about the idea and have the ability to build robots to get together and do the hard work of developing the technology themselves. If someone was able to come up with a robot prototype on their own time that worked well, looked cute and so on, in these days of the Internet they could use something like Kickstarter to finance getting it built professionally - so long as they didn't make the mistake so many others have of collecting money for a product they couldn't provide in a timely manner or at all...! Developers who did a lot of the initial legwork in their spare time for the love of it might also be able to keep the cost down a bit (I think Pleo's cost is reasonable given its sophistication, but not everyone will see that or care) and would perhaps be more willing to allow the public to have access to all the details of the design, source code and so on. Companies generally want to hold onto this 'intellectual property' and would be under pressure to do so from their investors. Pleo is adorable all on its own without us needing to have all the tools the developers had to program it, but I do think consumers will need full control over the programming of their robots, if they want that, for the idea to really capture the wider public's imagination.

As you might be able to tell from the length of my rantings on this, building and selling my own robots is something I'd love to try in the future, although it's well beyond my abilities now. I'm keen on learning, though, and also showing Pleo off to people I know socially who have the abilities and equipment to build robots but have maybe never had their thoughts wander in that direction.

irbyma7297 · « **Reply #9 on:** January 26, 2013, 01:25:49 PM »

yeah! i also had a member say they should make pleos into dogs, cats, wolfs, tigers, etc. but i think caleb chung chose a dino because they could be kinda awkward without it looking stupid, tigers etc. would need to be swift, not a stumbling (yet ADORABLE!) mooing, yelling dino XP also consider the FUR. it ould come off in chunks!

but reptile wise, i think a fourlegged dino would be fine, a triceratops, that armored dino (Completly forgot name) etc. would be extremely adorable, imagine how cute they'd be !!!

mlbelanger · « **Reply #10 on:** January 27, 2013, 03:35:17 PM »

I've been thinking along the same lines as Kami that an Open Source lifeform with easy to build hardware and software would be fantastic. Especially considering all the cool customization people would do with such a beastie.

The only fairly successful open source robotics project that includes hardware and software that I'm aware of is the Darwin OP which was developed by one of the Universities here in the U.S. They're made by one company in Asia I believe and they sell to Unis for about $12,000 so on par with the Aldeberran NAO robot. It's a humanoid with 20+ degrees of freedom and very expensive computer-driven servos with magnetic encoding, a wifi connected main computer, full voice recognition, full video processing for it's camera, running Linux, etc etc etc. Thus the high price tag. But it's still open source so you can download all the files and if you have access to a 3D printer and a CNC machine you can build the whole thing yourself, maybe at half the cost.

I think something along the lines of a Furby or the Pleo could be done fairly inexpensively and it would be fantastic to have it be completely open source.

zetathix · « **Reply #11 on:** February 17, 2013, 07:52:43 AM »

IMHO

Innvo maybe comes up with something basically based on Pleo rb. Maybe more advance or less (I bet on less side). And more specify to the programming toy market a little, like My Keepon that's open to Alduino. But this is just guessing.

I think the way that Innvo can live with this market is try to put some robotic toys to every of the price level. Pleo can do because this price range there is still less opponents (in the market). If you try to put it up with higher-tech parts and price range will comes close or meet with Genibo, for example. But if you want to diffusing the risk, that's the way. $:-\$

It maybe a waste and risk to upgrade Pleo rb with better part for now in Innvo's perspective. But something maybe better in the future if Pleo can standing still enough. Maybe some Pleo call-back for upgrading with better camera (just a little bit), Deal with data transfer problem. But for now I'm hope for just 2 things to happen from Innvo now, Open Pleo sources and release bench-adapter...

For some kind of a new specie, Maybe better if continue on a quadruped dinosaur line. Stegosaurus maybe too hard to petting but could add some kind of photo-thermo sensor on its fins to make a new trick like you need to take care him by let him sun-bathing (absolutely bad idea for skin material.). Or Triceratop or Pentasaurus or Brontosaurus or et cetera.

Personally, I want to see a Plesiosaurus, amphibian robotic pet, with some ultra-sonic sensor (Pleo have one too) that uses as main sensor...Feel good when petting with soft and silk-smooth skin. Is this have a possibility?

Crewella · « **Reply #12 on:** February 17, 2013, 09:56:24 AM »

I've always wondered how easy it would be to adapt the current Pleo form to make a baby elephant, or even better a baby woolly mammoth. You could use the neck motor/cables to run the trunk, maybe?

kat · « **Reply #13 on:** February 17, 2013, 03:32:08 PM »

A wooly mammoth would be very cool. I would think that they would need to have a second motor and set of cables to run the trunk though. But being a baby it's trunk wouldn't need to be super long. I'm sure baby elephants have much shorter trunks than the adult versions. So the trunk could be a lot like the tail on a pleo in it's make up but just much shorter. The neck would have to be a bit shorter too and could maybe be a bit thicker to accommodate a slightly larger more roundish head to allow for the accommodation of the trunk motor and gears and then of course there is the ears to consider

I would think a wooly mammoth would need ears that could flap.

nicholasljy123 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 18, 2013, 06:35:57 AM »

Great idea! But I was really thinking something like a cat or something...it may be a big hit if they could get Caleb Chung back into business and design the most lifelike robot cat (all robot cats I have seen so far all look obviously mechanical), which mimics a real one. It is rare that companies make a cat for a lifeform. One reason: Cats are lazy, stubborn, and disobedient.

zetathix · « **Reply #15 on:** February 18, 2013, 09:19:52 AM »

I bought the mammoth idea! So I roughly made an example of baby mammoth based on Pleo 3D model. No hair so look not quite good for now.

If wooly, I think he will be more adorable.

A cat's a great choice but they may look "stick to the ground". $:-\$

Crewella · « **Reply #16 on:** February 18, 2013, 09:34:25 AM »

I WANT ONE!!!!!!

Fabulous, Zetathix - my dream is made flesh!!

zetathix · « **Reply #17 on:** February 18, 2013, 10:20:56 AM »

I see you like it and that's make me happy too!

I will post some cute wooly'moth soon, so let me tweak it a few days more.

@nicholasljy123 IMHO If it's a cup of tiger or lion or liger or puma. It maybe fits well with original size and mechanic of Pleo. But I didn't exactly know, maybe cat will possible to make it looks live with current techs. Some toys like Fur... something make cat out and this cat for some people, I believed that will make heart-attack by the night. No offence.

kat · « **Reply #18 on:** February 18, 2013, 03:46:01 PM »

Love the mammoth pic

I want one tooo

Margery · « **Reply #19 on:** February 19, 2013, 04:25:01 PM »

What a fantastic creature! Looking forward to seeing the hairy version.

zetathix · « **Reply #20 on:** February 21, 2013, 04:52:43 AM »

This is hairy version. You can download HD to view here.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/9l95v0

Note: I've shorten his tusks to make him looks younger.

Crewella · « **Reply #21 on:** February 21, 2013, 08:45:31 AM »

Gorgeous!

Now all you have to do is make me a real one .........

zetathix · « **Reply #22 on:** February 21, 2013, 09:57:18 AM »

That's what I want to do, but unfortunately my knowledge can't go any further.

It has a tricky part that you need to disassemble head apart.

It's possible under 3D environment.

But maybe Innvo plan to make something also (guessing), I hope soon this one will be real.

In my pictures, I just want you all feel like "Ahh! just exactly what everyone need, sunlight!!! I feel a little warmer now and blink!".

kat · « **Reply #23 on:** February 21, 2013, 03:48:12 PM »

He is gorgeous and I'd love one

Kami · « **Reply #24 on:** February 21, 2013, 05:13:34 PM »

That little trunk is just so cute.

I hope (and have no doubt) we'll see something like this on the market some day.

Sorry if you've mentioned this already, zetathix, but I couldn't see it if you have - what graphics program did you use to make him?

Bob the Pleo Forums

Author Topic: Pleo rb, the first and last lifeform??? (Read 4511 times)