My Robots
Story

How It All Began

Fascination with animation. Since I was a young kid, I have been fascinated with animation! More specifically, I have been fascinated with the animation of inanimate things that appear as if they are real animate entities! This led to my fascination with the humanoid robots that appeared in sci-fi content, since they were animated machines which mimicked human behavior.

From drones to robots. In 2015 (a pivotal year for all my hobbies), when I was passionately researching the new trend of modern, self-balancing drones (see My Drones Story), my Amazon search results included a new super cool AI robotic toy called Cozmo. When I bought him on a whim and turned him on, it was like a Pixar character came to life!

Searching out robots. And so began my fascination with collecting robots - searching the web (including YouTube) for info on the best consumer robots around (current and past)! One YouTube channel, KhanFlicks, blew me away by demoing new robots as they came out and some older robots still available (and many other cool devices/things that I also acquired). By far, I found out about the vast majority of robots now in my collection through his awesome channel. Not to mention, his robot collection rivals mine today!

Defining the Collection

Collection criteria. Eventually, I based my robot collection on the following criteria:

• Design
  • ■ aesthetics
  • ■ not for kids only
• Movement
  • ■ naturalistic or interesting
  • ■ walks or rolls
• Interaction
  • ■ sound
  • ■ vision
  • ■ voice recognition
  • ■ movement sensor
  • ■ obstacle avoidance
  • ■ facial recognition
  • ■ object identification
  • ■ grab/hold
  • ■ speech
• Personality
  • ■ engaging conversation
  • ■ artificial life (perceived as autonomous and curious)
  • ■ artificial intelligence

Not just for display. Unlike other collectibles where you keep them in a display case, I want to interact with my robots and observe their wondrous behavior, more than having them look cool on display 😀 To do so, I have a battery management system, especially for the dozen or so robots who must charged every 1-3 months, so the their expensive batteries do not die! In addition, the enjoyment part of this hobby motivated me to build the dance floor in the hobby room, taking up so much real estate for the purpose of play.

Not making the cut. Check out the robots that I acquired, but after some thought, eliminated them from my collection, based on not meeting my collection criteria (primarily the not for kids only criteria).

Focusing on Social Robot Criteria

Envisioning the criteria. Over the years, I've spent time envisioning my ideal interactive experience when it comes to social robot companions. I wanted to define a set of core capabilities and engagement models to guide my thinking when evaluating these types of robots, so I considered two major analogous engagement models for a social robot:

• Like engaging with a kid. Since over the years I have been a "fun" uncle and uncle-figure to many kids, I focused on 3 age groups that I found the most enjoyable to engage with:
  • 2-year-old: This engagement involves a very primary level of play.
  • 4-year-old: This engagement involves a more interesting level of play.
  • 8-year-old: This engagement involves a combination of more sophisticated (yet still fun) play and friendly quality time (non-play).

Note: I found my interaction with Cozmo to be more like an interaction with a 3-year-old child, and my interaction with Vector to be closer to an interaction with a 6-year old child.

• Like engaging with a pet. Since over the years I have had many pets, I focused on the different types of engagement based on animal type:
  • A prototypical cat with an attitude that every once in a while would seek me out for affection or even for play.
  • A prototypical dog always affectionate, happy to see me, playful, and able to chill next to me when that was my mood.

Laying out the criteria. Based on these models, I devised the following criteria for my ideal social robot - here with the current state of this criteria (rating of 10) for social robots as of 2023-07-12, best represented by Loona:

Adjusting the criteria. I adjust these criteria over time as social robot technology rapidly improves. But it provides a framework for evaluating progress toward my vision for the perfect robotic companion. I'm excited to see these benchmarks get closer to reality with future advancements!

Enjoying the Collection

Fascinated with their simulating human/animal behavior. People often perceive me as playing with these toys like a young child would, but actually, I am just fascinated with seeing them move and behave like humans/animals. This fascination extends to artificial intelligence (AI) - which is needed to allow robots to behave more naturally and to not be bound to static scripts.

My Collection. See pics, videos, and my reviews for my 100+ robots! 🧸

My AI FAQ. Read about my thoughts on AI, and visit some cool AI links!