Lots of parents have a great stories about staying up late in the night to assemble bicycles, trains sets, and all manner of other toys. Now, that’s just the half of it. Not only are toys getting more complicated, the amount of information surrounding them is exploding exponentially.

This year, my husband received RoboSapien V2 (Sharper Image Signature Series) from me Santa. Dubbed “a fusion of technology and personality”, the 2 foot tall robot can, upon remote controlled command, dance, pick up objects, carry a beer, say a slew of catch phrases, throw a ball, and recognize and track colors with his Robovision. Most importantly, he can perform the critical function for which he was purchased - keeping our 100 lb lab on his toes.

The robot comes assembled, so other than remembering to buy batteries, I thought I was home free! Then again, I’m childless and naive. It took more than 1 hour just to get the robot out of his plastic coccoon and insert his 6 D and 7 AAA batteries. Next came the daunting instruction manual - roughly the length of the one for my car. In the old world, that would be it. You’d be done and ready to play. For this toy, the real education about the capabilities comes not in the booklet but online, where WowWee, makers of the RoboSapien and RoboReptile toys, supports the RoboCommuninty to bring robot lovers together. In addition to professionally answered FAQs, this official site links to non-sanctioned sites where enthusiasts have created hacks as sophisticated as teaching the robot to respond to vocal commands and how to play soccer against each other. Another additional piece of enjoyment is viewing the videos that other owners have made with RoboSapien & his 100 or so catchphrases. One of my favorites videos shows R2D2 going head to head with RoboSapien and getting reprogrammed by the older, wiser bot. Other YouTube Robo-entries range from silly to positively filthy.
These days a toy is no longer just a toy, but a gateway to a community and a sticky experience. Make sure you’re thoughtful in selecting the right ones for your husband kids.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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