The
Pleo is a robotic dinosaur designed to emulate the appearance and
behavior of a prehistoric animal. It was designed by Caleb Chung,
the co-creator of the Furby. Each Pleo would learn from its
experiences and develop an individual personality.
The Pleo was unveiled in
2006 at the DEMO Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona by the UGOBE
company and was
expected to come on the market around Fall 2007. Pleo shipments
started on December 5, 2007. In
2009 it was purchased by Innvo Labs. It has since been
completely redesigned and upgraded with many improvements.
The Pleo
was originally engineered by a group of robotic specialists, animators,
technologists, scientists, biologists, and programmers. The
design combined sensory, articulation, and neuronetics to
create a lifelike appearance with realistic movement and
behaviors.
The robot is software-upgradeable via
SD card or USB interfaces. In a 2008 test of various animatronic
animal toys in Slate magazine, the Pleo was the only contestant
which was considered a success, whereas the remaining models of
earlier or competing developers were mainly considered unnatural,
creepy or simply unconvincing.
Features
of the Pleo:
A camera-based vision
system (for light detection and navigation).
Two microphones for
hearing.
Beat detection (allows
Pleo to dance and listen to music).
Eight touch sensors (head,
chin, shoulders, back & feet).
Four foot switches (for
surface detection).
Fourteen force-feedback
sensors, one per joint.
Orientation tilt sensor
for body position.
Infrared mouth sensor for
object detection into mouth.
Infrared transmit and
receive for communication with other Pleo's.
Mini-USB port for online
downloads.
SD card slot for Pleo
add-ons.
Infrared detection for
external objects.
32-bit Atmel ARM 7
microprocessor (main processor for Pleo)
32-bit NXP ARM 7 sub
processor (camera system, audio input dedicated
processor).
We
exhibit these & other robots Free of Charge at
schools, science museum's, robotic competitions and
science expo's with
the hope that they inspire everyone... young & old.
RoboQuad
is copyrighted by the WowWee Corporation.
R2D2
& Star War's are trademarks of Lucas Films. "Robby
the Robot" & "Forbidden Planet" are
trademarks
of Turner Entertainment Co., a Time Warner Company.
Lost in Space® is a registered trademark of Space
Productions and Synthesis Ent.
Our
items have been displayed at these Museums &
Centers:
Robots
w/June
