WowWee Alive Chimpanzee - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Alive Chimpanzee is produced by WowWee Alive, a division of WowWee Ltd.

Wow Wee

WowWee Group Limited, an Optimal Group company , is a Hong Kong-based company founded by Richard and Peter Yanofsky. Initially from Canada, the two brothers moved to Hong Kong to form the company in 1982 as an independent research & development and manufacturing outfit...

The animatronic Chimpanzee is the first in WowWee Alive's product line. Unlike WowWee's other robots, the Chimpanzee only consists of the head of a chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

. It houses eight motors

Electric motor

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...

to mimic

Mimic

In evolutionary biology, mimicry is the similarity of one species to another which protects one or both. This similarity can be in appearance, behaviour, sound, scent and even location, with the mimics found in similar places to their models....

the facial expressions of a real chimp. It also contains 9 sensors, including IR

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

sensors in the eyes, touch sensors on the chin, top and rear of the head and sound and vibration

Vibration

Vibration refers to mechanical oscillations about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be periodic such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road.Vibration is occasionally "desirable"...

sensors in the ear. There is also an Alive Elvis manufactured.

In attempting to make the Chimpanzee as realistic

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

as possible, each strand of hair is rooted individually into the skin

Skin

-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...

of the robot and the skin moves and is colored to match realistic skin tones, including vein

Vein

In the circulatory system, veins are blood vessels that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenated blood to the heart...

ing. As with other WowWee robots, the Chimpanzee can be operated in different modes; in its case, the modes are Alive, Guard, Program, Demo and Sleep.

Also, as revealed in a magazine of Popular Science in one of the articles, you can rip the face off the Alive Chimpanzee to reveal a Terminator-like robot face which follows your movement with two red eyes. The fact was revealed in a How2.0 article which demonstrates what you need to scare your friends. It was revealed as one of the tips to make the scare even scarier.

Features

Some of the Chimpanzee's notable features are:

Mood dependent behavior: responds to stimuli
Stimulus (physiology)
In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the internal or external environment. The ability of an organism or organ to respond to external stimuli is called sensitivity....

with mood specific animations and sounds
Infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

vision
Visual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision...

system: detects movement, tracks objects and reacts to human interaction
Human robot interaction
Human–robot interaction is the study of interactions between humans and robots. It is often referred as HRI by researchers. Human–robot interaction is a multidisciplinary field with contributions from human–computer interaction, artificial intelligence, robotics, natural language understanding, and...
Touch sensors in his chin, head and ears
Stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...

sound sensors detect loud sounds
Remote control or autonomous interactivity
Visual and sonic
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

guard mode
Program mode
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...

mode

Four Moods:

Curious
Fearful
Happy
Angry

Modes of Operation:

Alive: default mode. Reacts to sensory input, and performs autonomous actions.
Direct Control: responds to user commands.
Program: Up to 20 distinct steps (movements and sounds) can be entered in an ordered sequence
Sequence
In mathematics, a sequence is an ordered list of objects . Like a set, it contains members , and the number of terms is called the length of the sequence. Unlike a set, order matters, and exactly the same elements can appear multiple times at different positions in the sequence...

that will be stored and can be played back at a later time.
Guard: Uses the vision and sound sensors to detect intruders around it, and reacts in response, either with a random animation or if a program has been entered.
Demo
Demo mode
The demo mode is a feature often found in consumer electronics. A demo mode is usually programmed into the unit's firmware, and is often accessed by the pressing of a combination of keys. Demo mode is usually activated by retail stores on their consumer electronics floor models...

: runs through 2 or 3 random animations.
Sleep: the Chimpanzee will power down after a preset amount of time without activity.

External links

WowWee
WowWee Alive - WowWee Alive Product site
RoboCommunity - The official WowWee Robotics user community

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Features

See also

External links