Marlowe
This is Marlowe! He can be recognized by dark spots on his chin and some battle scars on his back. Marlowe is by far the most philosophical of the robots who enjoys taking long backwards walks along wooden tables and imitating cows.
Grandpa
Meet Grandpa, the oldest and most friendly Pleo in the heard! Grandpa loves to meet people, and is always in a good mood. You can tell Grandpa from the other Pleos by the tan spots on his head and back.
Megatron
Pictured above is Megatron, the most rebellious and stubborn of the three Scribbler robots. Though he caused a lot of trouble in his early days (refusing to connect via Bluetooth to anyone’s computer and barely turning on), we have since befriended him and taught him some awesome new tricks! Megatron’s special tricks include the ability to draw a variety of shapes, including polygons, stars, and spirals; the ability to follow red objects using his camera “eye”; and the ability to even play Tron with the other Scribblers. As for the future, Megatron hopes to one day be a model robot for all the Scribblers in CSCI 101 and CSCI 102 and to help build the necessary tools to help the students learn programming for the first time through robotics.
WarKing
Meet WarKing, the fiercest battle robot in the land. WarKing hails from the faraway land of Parallax. His powerful infrared sensors allow him to navigate among obstacles, and his unparalleled line sensing keeps him on course. WarKing is working on precise movement, which will help him both on the battlefield and in his newest task, learning to write in English.
WallE
Say hello to WallE! No, it’s not the same WallE from the beloved Disney film, but this Scribbler robot from Parallax has its own appeal all the same. … Or so I thought until I showed it to some family members. The reaction I got was “Oh. That’s it? It’s not very exciting to look at. Can it do anything special?” At the time, the robot didn’t have any groundbreaking demos to defend its pride, but after a few weeks of quality time with me, it’s learned a few neat tricks.
Its first lesson was in music. The Scribbler is capable of beeping any tone within an 8 octave range (although only 4 octaves are audible to the human ear). Its current repertoire consists only of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but it’s capable of performing anything if given the notes. It can also play (beep) two notes at the same time to give its musical pieces a bit more complexity.
Since it plays music, it should be able to dance, right? WallE can’t exactly dance to the beat, but by combining its basic movement functions, it can produce a cute little wiggle dance. It’s not the most useful tool, but hey, it’s cute!
WallE’s most recent undertaking has been learning how to write. It’s a very slow process for the bot, but it is fully capable of writing short messages. The letters that form each word are connected by a baseline since the robot isn’t capable of lifting the pen it ‘writes’ with as it moves. As such, the handwriting isn’t the prettiest thing in the world (yet) but it’s well on its way!
That’s about it for WallE!