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Heading to be now but I found this thread during work and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through. I love robots in general, drones and RC helicoptors (not quite the same category, I know) have always had my interest. As have Zoids and such.

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@Sen507

Have you ever used a Wowwee Roboraptor? I have one, and it's very interesting with how it seems to like me one minute and hate me the next (nuzzling me and then roaring at me). Your robots sound cool too. :D

@Songwind
Yep, I have! I remember being super excited to get one when I was about seven years old, and when I did, I even brought it into school with me for a couple days, aha. I recently found him sitting in my attic just this year and he still works fine. I personally don't care for Roboraptors that much right now since they don't really have much AI at all, even for the price, but the sounds and design are cool and they were a big part of my childhood being one of my first robots, so I definitely have to appreciate that. I took this video of some of my dinosaur robots a while back though and one of the ones it features is my Roboraptor.

Also, if anyone was interested in following my Densuke Aibo project, I made a thread about it here.

I also now have a Tumblr blog for robot related stuff (here), if anyone is interested in checking it out.

I am not a scientist by any stretch, but I love the work by Boston Dynamics. or did they start from MIT's Leg Lab? I don't know the specifics, but I remember a couple of robot designs featured in a Computer Animation Festival video I had as a kid. then when I found out they came from a real place, it blew my mind! and now I love watching each new iteration of Big Dog and littler dog and FAST DOG and so on.

From a character design standpoint they're really together too, you can tell exactly how they work just by looking at them, even without an engineering background. really good inspiration for mechanical characters and creatures! it's pretty irksome to see steampunk or other sci-fi robot designs that are just, "let's put some shiny metal bits together and it'll look really cool!!" without any attention to the construct.

I'll take a look at your guys too, I've never heard of Aibo. I had one of those little 90s dog robots and a Furby but could never get them to do anything. :V

edit; typo

@tinydobes
I have seen some of the robots by Boston Dynamics on YouTube and their navigation skills through rough terrain are really awesome. I'm pretty surprised by what those robots can withstand, though I wonder if they're actually durable in the long term or not yet. Personally, I'm not really sure about their appearance, even though they have legs and animal like walking-motions, I always see them more like cars than "robots."

Aha, if you dislike robots with pointlessly shiny and sci-fi looking designs, I feel like you'd hate the Aibo ERS-220. Surprisingly though, some of the silly looking features actually do have purposes (the pop-up light on their heads actually helps them better track colors in dark lighting), but some are just there completely for looks and nothing more. They look like they were designed to be a dog form of Cylons or something like that, taken straight from a cheesy sci-fi movie.

You should definitely check Aibos out! In my opinion, they're the best robots that have ever been commercially available to the public by far. Oh gosh, I really can't stand Furbies. Something about their voices really gets on my nerves and they're just so repetitive and creepy looking. I still have a few just since I collect robots though. Oh, do you mean Poo-Chis? I think they came out in 2000, but I don't know of any robot dogs (aside from the first Aibo generation) that came out in the '90s. I used to have two of those when I was younger, but I only know where one is now. They're less annoying than Furbies, but I really dislike robots that I can't turn off without removing the batteries.

@Sen507
ooh, yes you're right! it must have been early 2000s then, I remember a lot of robot toys coming out--I had a silver dog bigger than Poo-chi (dumb as a brick too), and there was also a lizard and maybe a dinosaur, I remember commercials for them. I know they released new Furbies recently, with light-up eyes, but I think I was scared of them ever since seeing Gremlins. I don't trust things that don't have an "off" button, either.

I'm more of a bare-bones person myself, I like seeing the skeleton and wiring when possible, but the Aibos look good! I mean, they're supposed to look softer and appealing (and not like they're going to come bounding out of a forest at you), so it makes total sense, and there's nothing that extraneous about them. I think I like your Zoe best!
My peeve is more like, people drawing a robot without considering how it's supposed to move, if you were to construct it. Funnily enough I see Boston Dynamic's robots as animal-like, while designs like Aibo look more traditionally robot to me. Even though BD's guys don't tend to have heads--! that probably makes them look more frightening.

I'm curious, are you able to program their movements too? I can see that they have premade dance sequences and reactions, and their joint articulation is impressive! If it were me I'd probably try to push them to their limit, although that would be hard on the poor dogs, so maybe not. oAo

@tinydobes
Ah, I'm guessing that was probably a Tekno? (They were also first released in 2000.) I still have one of those that I got when I was really little. Aha, I remember I got him when I was around five and named him "Grumpy." I have one of the newer Furbies and they're a bit less creepy than the older ones in my opinion, but just as (if not more) obnoxious.

One of my I-Cybies that I have is missing about half of it's plastics so that I can see some of the wiring which I think looks pretty nice. I'm also considering skinning one of my Pleos since his skin is literally falling apart and really gross and if I do, I'll also be able to easily see a lot of common potential issues (cables sagging or wearing thin, wires coming loose, etc.) before they happen without the skin hiding all of the electronics.

Aha, Zoe is my ERS-220 and they certainly have a different look to them than most Aibos which are designed to look a bit more like animal/pets or even dogs at times (ERS-210s were actually designed to be lion cubs). I don't mind the look, but I mean, they even have fake vents on the sides simply for looks and the only way to scold/praise them is with that antenna on their heads which is pretty odd to me and most 220s are missing their antennas now since it breaks off so easily. What I really love about the 2X0 and 1X0 series though is that they're made in a modular system of blocks that anyone can easily put together or take apart with no technical skills at all, so if one part breaks, you don't need to send in the whole robot to be repaired or replaced, just that one part.

I think the lack of a head is probably what makes the Boston Dynamics ones read more vehicle than animal to me, but their walking styles are very realistic which is definitely pretty cool (especially how that recent one recovered its balance after being kicked, looked just like a real animal would).

Yep! I don't know anything about the coding language used for them (I believe it's called RCode?), so I can't make anything from scratch, but it's been done and someone did make a program a while back called Skitter that allows you to make custom dance sequences or actions (with custom LEDs and sounds) for them with no coding knowledge which is pretty awesome (these can't be inputted into official software, but they can be added to user-made freeware). Another awesome feature of Skitter though is that it warns you when a movement is too fast and potentially harmful because of this and will notify you to correct it before writing the program to a memory stick. This is one of the dances that I made using Skitter. The Genibos actually have much better default dances than Aibos though, most intricate Aibo dances you'll see are made with Skitter.