Meet Dopey

Dopey is a newborn robot Camarasaurus. That’s right, I got myself a Pleo. Not a Xmas present (otherwise I’d have unpacked it too soon), the timing is purely coincidental. It has actually more to do with the fairly generous end-of-year bonus from my work, in spite of the financial crisis.

So Dopey has just “hatched” and has gone through his “infant” stage, meaning he’s gotten to know himself and explored his surroundings a bit. After playing around for an hour or so, he got tired and fell asleep (in technical terms, his battery ran dry). So it’s recharging now. After that, he’s supposed to be a juvenile with a Peter Pan-complex, meaning he’ll be a juvenile for the rest of his life. Kinda sweet come to think of it, since juvenile creatures tend to be the most adorable.

Here’s a short (1:39 min, 9.4 MiB) video of Dopey discovering the edge of a table:

Dopey on the edge (video)

I also made some photos during the hatching and infant stages.

I’m not sure how attached I could get to what is after all merely an emotionless machine, but it is certainly an interesting creature that does a fair job of imitating those emotions. And it is programmable, so I might get inclined to hack it soon.

By the way, Dopey doesn’t make any sounds in the video (except for the motor noises) because I must have inadvertently pushed the mute button. Dopey is definitely more than able to produce sound.