Trendsurfing: Toy-hacking (The Times)
By David Rowan
Anyone can play with a battery-powered toy as the manufacturer intended. But only the truly cool will re-engineer the toy itself, taking apart its circuitry to create something entirely novel. The hobby is called toy "modding" or "hacking", and it has grown with each new Furby or Sony Aibo that cried out to be electronically modified. Yet only now, thanks to a best-selling 14-inch robot, has the toy hack become a truly global phenomenon.
From Seattle to Strathclyde, amateur hackers are taking apart Robosapien, the hot toy last Christmas, and proudly sharing their "improvements" on websites and bulletin boards. Out of the box, the £80 remote-controlled robot is already programmed with 67 moves, allowing it to walk, dance, kick, and even burp and break wind. But with a little imagination, hobbyists are teaching their Robosapien to be walking video camera, to dance the macarena, even to play competitive football.
Jamie Samans, 34, a writer in Seattle, has spent almost six months of his spare time fitting his Robosapien with a wireless camera, a radio frequency audio receiver and a stereo system, all controlled from his PC or over the internet. He now sends his robot walking around his house to send back images of whatever he sees. "On its own the toy is not that great, nothing more than a remote-control car," Samans says. "But if you apply some creativity - well, there's nothing stopping you. I've fitted a wireless radio and created Robosapien surround sound, so he walks around playing whatever music I'm listening to. I've turned him from a toy into a tool."
His obsession has earned Samans a contract to write a book about Robosapien, as well as a £275 prize in a magazine competition for the best robot hack. He is not, he insists, one of the hardcore "brain replacer" hackers who feel driven to reprogram every move: he is more of a soldering-iron hobbyist than a technical expert. In fact, he studied intellectual medieval history at Oxford before finding work as a political lobbyist in Washington. Toy hacking just seemed to fill the creative gap.
Now the hobby is spreading across the world. At the University of Freiburg in Germany, researchers are building a Robosapien football team, equipped with cameras and PocketPC computers, to take on a team from the University of Osnabrück. For Mark Craig, a robot-hacking student at Strathclyde University, it all comes down to making a personal statement. "You are effectively taking something which is a clone from a shop and turning it into your own," explains Craig, whose website is packed with "bad photos" of his reconstructed Robosapien. "Some may settle for customising it with stickers or painting it, but others wish to improve upon it by giving it a brain to think for itself."
Back in Seattle, Jamie Samans is ready for a new challenge: his wife bought him a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner for Christmas, although he has not yet had the heart to take it apart. He is, though, looking for his next Robosapien hack. "Maybe adding a weather station," he reflects, "or something to improve his grip."
Still... shouldn't he just get a life? "I've had my time doing the sensible things," Samans laughs. "I've lobbied for major tax bills that would save my clients millions of dollars, and I couldn't have cared less. But now I get to send MP3s from the PC in the house to my Robosapien in the garage. And that's a Eureka moment."
(The Times, London, January 15 2005)
Anyone can play with a battery-powered toy as the manufacturer intended. But only the truly cool will re-engineer the toy itself, taking apart its circuitry to create something entirely novel. The hobby is called toy "modding" or "hacking", and it has grown with each new Furby or Sony Aibo that cried out to be electronically modified. Yet only now, thanks to a best-selling 14-inch robot, has the toy hack become a truly global phenomenon.
From Seattle to Strathclyde, amateur hackers are taking apart Robosapien, the hot toy last Christmas, and proudly sharing their "improvements" on websites and bulletin boards. Out of the box, the £80 remote-controlled robot is already programmed with 67 moves, allowing it to walk, dance, kick, and even burp and break wind. But with a little imagination, hobbyists are teaching their Robosapien to be walking video camera, to dance the macarena, even to play competitive football.
Jamie Samans, 34, a writer in Seattle, has spent almost six months of his spare time fitting his Robosapien with a wireless camera, a radio frequency audio receiver and a stereo system, all controlled from his PC or over the internet. He now sends his robot walking around his house to send back images of whatever he sees. "On its own the toy is not that great, nothing more than a remote-control car," Samans says. "But if you apply some creativity - well, there's nothing stopping you. I've fitted a wireless radio and created Robosapien surround sound, so he walks around playing whatever music I'm listening to. I've turned him from a toy into a tool."
His obsession has earned Samans a contract to write a book about Robosapien, as well as a £275 prize in a magazine competition for the best robot hack. He is not, he insists, one of the hardcore "brain replacer" hackers who feel driven to reprogram every move: he is more of a soldering-iron hobbyist than a technical expert. In fact, he studied intellectual medieval history at Oxford before finding work as a political lobbyist in Washington. Toy hacking just seemed to fill the creative gap.
Now the hobby is spreading across the world. At the University of Freiburg in Germany, researchers are building a Robosapien football team, equipped with cameras and PocketPC computers, to take on a team from the University of Osnabrück. For Mark Craig, a robot-hacking student at Strathclyde University, it all comes down to making a personal statement. "You are effectively taking something which is a clone from a shop and turning it into your own," explains Craig, whose website is packed with "bad photos" of his reconstructed Robosapien. "Some may settle for customising it with stickers or painting it, but others wish to improve upon it by giving it a brain to think for itself."
Back in Seattle, Jamie Samans is ready for a new challenge: his wife bought him a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner for Christmas, although he has not yet had the heart to take it apart. He is, though, looking for his next Robosapien hack. "Maybe adding a weather station," he reflects, "or something to improve his grip."
Still... shouldn't he just get a life? "I've had my time doing the sensible things," Samans laughs. "I've lobbied for major tax bills that would save my clients millions of dollars, and I couldn't have cared less. But now I get to send MP3s from the PC in the house to my Robosapien in the garage. And that's a Eureka moment."
(The Times, London, January 15 2005)
posted by David Rowan at Saturday, January 15, 2005
<< Home