Alive Chimpanzee
© 2006 WowWee USA, Inc.
Sure to send your cat into a potted plant, this robotic life-sized Chimp bust has squishy skin and eyes that blink, squint, and can track motion. Other sensors tell it when it is being touched or talked to, and the animatronics could easily pass in a Disney theme park. The bust is either controlled with a remote control, or it has four “alive” modes, where it will respond to the environment with random behaviors. The infrared vision system allows it to detect movement and track objects; the most popular feature of this attention-capturing toy. There are touch sensors in the chin, head and ears. Preprogrammed emotion modes include curious, fearful, angry and happy. While curious, he'll blink or raise his eyebrows. Sharp motions or noises might make him scream. The movement and expressions are the work of eight motors which control the head, eyes, mouth, upper lip, eyelid and eyebrow. By using the remote, it is possible to program the chimp by entering a sequence of movements or sounds. These can be triggered either by pressing the program button once or by a vision or a sound. The rather heavy bust requires four 'D' batteries, and a 9-volt battery is needed for the remote. It also has an A/C adapter port.
$160, Smart Toy
Teaches: programming, robotics
CTR Rating: 78%