Gupi - Intelligent Robot Guinea Pig Version 3

GUPI is a robotised guinea pig that looks and feels like a real one. GUPI is highly autonomous, he walks around in the house, without bumping into anything thanks to gupi's sensors in its eyes, or falling of the table of the stairs with the help of sensors at his legs. GUPI is so smart he can also walk through a maze and you can be assured that he will find a way out.

You'll see different types of GUPI on the Internet, and GUPI Version 3 is the latest and greatest GUPI. The main differences between GUPI Version 2 and GUPI version 3 are

• Higher capacity battery
• Enhanced Manual which recommends a 12 hour charge for first time usage
• Bug fixes to the controller chip
• 3 Pin Mains Charger
• Packaging redesigned

GUPI has a very interactive playing behaviour, if you don't play with him he becomes lonely and scared and he will go hiding in a dark place. But if you caress him he will feel loved, and he will be happy. GUPI can also hear you, and he will react to voices and sounds, depending on his mood ..... When GUPI is happy he will actually come running at you when you call him, but when he's scared he can't stand noise and will run away from it. When happy GUPI will also follow a light beam so you can lead him wherever you want him to go. When GUPI gets hungry you can feed him (read : recharge his reloadable batteries) through a little carrot, and he's ready for a lot more fun together with his friends.

As such GUPI creates the Tamagochi® binding-effect. Gupi  has a unique identification codes in the chipsets, therefore, when other Gupis are in the vicinity, they will express excited behaviour and they will learn gradually how to accept each other, how to share food (battery re-loader), and how to play with each other.

This is version 3 of Gupi!

Features

Sensors
So what can GUPI do? On its bottom are four legs/wheels (the one is integrated with the other, fairly cleverly), enabling it to move around as it wants to, in any direction, forwards and backwards. Infrared sensors in its eyes and on its nose help it find its way around and stop it bumping into obstacles. Light sensors in its eyes tell GUPI when it's in the dark. An attitude sensor in the body detects when it's horizontal (i.e. free to move around) and when it's vertical (i.e. being held nose-up and cuddled). A pressure sensor on GUPI's back lets it respond to being stroked. A similar sensor between the eyes also acts as a master control to send GUPI to sleep or wake it up again.

The carrot
The carrot is interesting, letting you (at the press of button) send out an infrared beam that GUPI picks up and homes in on. It's also featured at charging time (i.e. GUPI eating its carrot).

Movement
GUPI's movements are fun to watch, psuedo-random (subject to your furniture layout and carrot tempting) and not too noisy. The legs/wheels do need a fairly level and smooth surface to work on, so you might have to help GUPI out on thick carpet or uneven pavement outside.

Sound effects
There are a couple of dozen different sound effects, all well done, ranging from cute 'ahh' noises to grumpy 'uh-oh' sounds when it's fed up or hungry.

Learning
As you'll see from the table above, there are a number of states that GUPI can be in. In practice, you don't need to worry about this too much, 99% of the time your GUPI will either be behaving normally or asleep. You just need to know that it needs lots of stroking after your first turn it on and a little patting on the back by obstacles for the first few minutes of its life. I'm not sure why this training period is necessary; maybe there an internal setting for the infrared which needs to be calibrated?

Battery life
In practice, you can get about half an hour's run-time out of each charge. This doesn't seem like long, but after a minute or two of exploring with no human interaction at all (i.e. you or your child has gone off and forgotten about it) it puts itself to sleep. In an average day in the family household, you'll just need to put GUPI on charge at night.

Further information can be found at this amazing Gupi site, please visit the link below for further information.

    
Related Article:
http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/gupi/index.html