Pleo The Robotic Dinosaur - Your New Best Friend

By Author: AMANDA ISBITT
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Have you always felt the need for a companion who doesn't come with the hassles of keeping a domestic pet yet gives the entire satisfaction of watching a cute little being grow up in front of your eyes?

You possibly have toddlers in your household who would love a partner-in-crime, someone to play along with him, be by his side to keep his boredom away. Its time you put an end to all these hair-splitting woes and buy yourself a Pleo. What's, that, you say? A pleo is a robotic one-year-old dinosaur developed by Caleb Chung with his team of roboticists, biologists, archeologists, mathematicians, computer programmers at his lab in Ugobe.

As you might recollect, this is the very guy who gave the world Furby! What a delight he was to kids and adults alike! Well, here is his second gift to the world in the form a baby camarasaurus who is programmed to emulate the mannerisms and behavior of a one-year-old toddler. You may ask why he chose a camarasuarus when he could have easily managed with a tyrannosaurus, a brontosaurus, or a brachiosaurus for that sake. Well, you see there are some obvious anatomical advantages ...
... in the Camarasaurus that gives it an edge above the rest of its Jurassic and Triassic counterparts. For example, its large cranium has space enough to pack in all the sensors and computer chips and circuitry needed to give the toy a real life feel. Now isn't that clever on the part of Mr. Chung!

A Pleo is programmed to learn from his surrounding environment. As he gets more and more experienced his Artificial Intelligence kicks in and enables him to act according the environment he is faced with. He always learns from his experiences so that when you are with him you get the necessary feedback for your emotions and gestures. Pleo has a birthing stage of five to ten minutes during which he actually opens his eyes for the first time and acclimatizes with the outside world. Leo being replete with different types of sensors is pretty slow in the first few moments when he is trying to adjust himself with the outside world. His learning entirely depends on how much you pet and nurture, and with regular improvements in its complexity of activities Pleo becomes more and more intuitive. It develops an entirely unique personality based on how you treat him. He is fully hatched when stands tall on four feet and is completely awake.

Pleo comes in a shade of bottle green, weighing only 3.5 pounds, and being about 7.5 inches high and 21 inches long when he is standing on all his four legs. Being engineered with 100 custom gears and 14 specially designed motors for articulate motions. It also has tilt and shake sensors to make it realize when it has upturned, similarly it also four special sensors on its skin, chin, neck, legs, tail and torso, which will produce feedback to any sudden violent jerks you apply on Pleo. Pleo has infrared sensors in his mouth to judge anything is entering his mouth or not. His feet sensors allow him to understand whether he is treading on solid ground or has he been lifted up. It has two 32-bit microprocessors for central and image processing; it has four 8-bit microprocessors for controlling his motor activities. You can even update the program fed into plea via add on SD cards or by downloading them using his mini USB port, so that he never ever ceases to be an object of your affection.

Pleo is not only a marvel of science; it also exhibits of a growing up toddler. Suppose his NiMh Battery is low on charge his tail droops and his actions become extremely slowed to denote that he is sinking into a state of energylessness. He is always inquisitive enough to learn new things, as he ambles along the household swaying his tail, looking out with his large and sparkling eyes for the sights sounds, colors, and textures of the mysterious world around him.

Suppose Pleo Dinosaur feels hungry, he will let out a hoot or hold out his tongue or put on a sad forlorn appearance to let you know that he yearns for his favorite leaf or just an affectionate pat. He also expresses his fears and shocks by cowering from the saddening or shocking aspect of his environs. If he is trained well enough, he can put up quite a good show in front of your friends and neighbors much that their surprise and delight. A good game of tug-of-war with Pleo might have them in delights but in your eyes will linger the tears of pride and joy.
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