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Justus Krueger

Grand Award  WowWee

It can dance, throw, kick, belch, rap, talk and even do kung fu chops. And it also grabs this year's grand award for technological achievement.

'We put a lot of work into the Robosapien V2,' said Phillip Duffy, creative director of WowWee. 'Winning the industry award is particularly pleasing. Unlike most other competitions, in this award we are judged by our peers. The people on the judges' panel are involved in the same kind of industry.'

While Mr Duffy talked, the Robosapien on the desk came to life and said: 'I identify human.' Its jarring robot voice sounded eerie at first, but once it had tracked this reporter down, saying 'tracking human', it waved its claw and greeted me with a friendly: 'Hi there!'

'Its vision runs over two kinds of sensors,' Mr Duffy explained. 'Infrared transmitters allow it to get information about its environment in much the same way a bat does. It also has a camera system that recognises colours, including human skin colour. That's how it identifies you. This is a very effective yet relatively simple and affordable visual system.'

The robot performed a few sit-ups on the desk and then started to dance, displaying an astonishing degree of flexibility.

'It's not easy to make a robot walk, but this one has very good balance,' Mr Duffy said, as the robot, also known as RS V2, made its way across the desk.

WowWee has improved on the robot's footprint-size-ratio, meaning it does not need canoe-sized feet to keep its balance. Also, it is designed with 12 motors that allow extra flexibility and diversity of movement.

'We are rather proud of the RS V2's 12 motor design,' the creative director said. 'There are very few consumer items on the market with so many motors. It's a pretty difficult task to co-ordinate them.' Moreover, the humanoid machine employs a new technology that enhances the battery life to up to 20 hours.

The 55cm RS V2 was designed by Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist who has worked for US space agency Nasa, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency   and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined WowWee in 2000.

Back in 1988, Mr Tilden developed the basics for biomorphic robotics - robots that mimic biological beings. Robosapien is the first commercially available robot based on this principle.

WowWee robots are technologically sophisticated and exceptionally affordable. While other companies produce hundreds of robots for thousands of US dollars each, WowWee churns out millions of them at prices ranging from US$50 to US$200. It is no surprise, therefore, that WowWee robots are a huge success.

The company also produces dinosaur-like Roboraptors and dog-like Robopets. WowWee products appeal to a wide age group, from five- to 35-year-olds.

'The demographic spread is comparable to that of PlayStation or Xbox,' Mr Duffy said. 'I don't think we will stay in this comfortable position for very long, but right now we are basically our own competitor. Other robot-makers used to think of us as a toy company, while toy-makers tend to see us as a robotics firm.

'Actually, we don't see these robots as simply toys anymore either. Think Atari. It started as a video game but had huge effects later on both PC and game-console technology, like PlayStation and others.'

Sales of the limited-edition Robosapien V2 have been brisk - with 300,000 sold since the toy was released in September.

Marketing begins only this year, but hopes are high that the new model will do even better than its predecessor.

WowWee sold 3 million Robosapien 1s.

While the first robot speaks what its designers call 'international caveman', a universally understandable speech of grunts and howls, the RS V2 - selling in North America, Britain, Australia and Hong Kong - is well-versed in English.

WowWee founders Richard and Peter Yanofsky hail from Canada's Francophone province of Quebec, so it makes sense that a French-speaking robot is under development.

The two brothers initially ran a toy company in Canada. In 1982, Peter Yanofsky moved to Hong Kong and started WowWee, which designed toys for other companies. In 1997, the company started to work on its own products. These ranged from remote-controlled toys such as a skateboard with a character on it to minicars and the world's first robo-dog. The robo-dog sold by the millions and launched WowWee's animal-tronics line.

Three years later the Yanofsky brothers convinced Mr Tilden to trade his job at Los Alamos for a post in WowWee's research and development department in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Mr Tilden, who was a scientific adviser to former US president Bill Clinton's administration and created robots used in a Mars mission during his 10-year stint at Nasa, did not pursue the expensive and complicated path of artificial intelligence research for WowWee robots.

Instead, he favours using simple electronics to build mechanical creatures with complex behaviour patterns.

'We put a lot of effort into reducing the complexity of our robots, so it would be easy to take them apart and put them together again, and use them as a platform to build in devices after your own designs,' Mr Tilden said.

'You can upgrade them in all sorts of ways.

'And to make the robots even more fun, we build in a number of hidden features, not unlike game-cheats. There is actually a large community of hackers out there who play around with Robosapiens in this way.'

WowWee's founders are Canadian, but the company is firmly rooted in Hong Kong.

'R&D, engineering, design, marketing - basically everything you need to get a project from a thought bubble to a great item in the shop window is done here in the city,' Mr Duffy said.

WowWee started with a staff of seven and now has 65 people in Hong Kong.

Mr Duffy said because WowWee was not a huge corporation, it was a closely knit team. 'It is fun to work here. The work process is entirely professional, but also very non-standard.'

and the judges said

'With very creative and innovative software and ideas, WowWee's Robosapien V2, a robotic toy, is distinctive among its competitors. The company's R&D achievements are well demonstrated in the product's vision and sound recognition and other intelligent features. Robosapien2 has hardware hacking features with an open architecture for user exploration, thus creating a new DIY culture in the robotic knowledge for adults and kids alike. Its IP is highly portable, which can be useful to other industry practitioners.

'The product has proven the potential for robotic toys designed in Hong Kong. Its impact on the market is great.'



Robot climbs evolutionary ladder