Buzz Lightyear Robot Toy Features Limited Motion Capture
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 18 of June , 2009 at 12:55 am
If you’ve been to see Pixar’s Up, you probably noticed that the next Pixar movie (due out on 2010) is Toy Story 3. Even though it’s a year away, apparently Disney (I assume it’s Disney) has unleashed the merchandising hounds and they’ve already come up with this Buzz Lightyear robot toy. It’s voice controlled, which looks to work surprisingly well, and has plenty of sounds and blinky lights and stuff, but the interesting bit is that it’s apparently got some kind of motion capture programming ability. Most humanoid robots have this feature; you basically tell the robot “watch this,” move it around a bunch, and then it can play back the motions. String a bunch of motions together and you can teach the robot to walk, kick a soccer ball, do Kung Fu, or anything else you want.
It’s unclear from this preview video just how far the motion capture option extends, and it’s also unclear whether or not the robot can walk, although I assume it can’t. It’s going to be available this fall for $130 – $150. It might be a good segue into programmable robots if your kid is a huge Toy Story / Pixar / Buzz Lightyear fan, but otherwise I might recommend spending the money on a fully programmable robot, and then taking what’s left and going to see the movie a few extra times.
VIA [ Gizmodo ]
Comments (1)
Category: Toys
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Comment by Anastasios-Antonios Toulkeridis
Made Thursday, 18 of June , 2009 at 4:02 am
i’m really shocked… my nephew has had this toy for months now and no one had the slightest idea that it can do all these stuff. That, or it is a different older model :-)
It would seem strange for Disney to launch this product in Greece first, wouldn’t it?