BeatBots is happy to announce that we’re making the Keepon robotic platform available for professional institutional users. If you are an institution interested in obtaining Keepon Pro for research and educational purposes, please contact us at info@beatbots.org for more information.
Norri Kageki spoke with us to cover the story for Robot Watch (Japanese) and her GetRobo blog (English/Japanese). Her report was picked up by Gizmodo, Engadget, and BotJunkie.
Meanwhile, we’re working on a less expensive version. Subscribe to our RSS feed to receive updates, or we’ll have a mailing list set up shortly.
Great to hear that there will be a less-expensive version although it sounds like it will still be targeted as a teaching tool.
What about a mass-market version from which a portion of the proceeds can be donated towards Autism awareness and research? You see thousands of people clamoring for a Keepon so there is definitely the market there.
Such a version may not even need to move. Just a sponge-rubber doll that people can make dance themselves.
If it were to move just have simple response to environmental sound and beats with pre-programmed combinations of moves. You wouldn’t need the cameras, only a rudimentary microphone and simpler mechanism.
Just a thought…
I agree with Greg above, they’ve had “robots” that danced to music since the 1980’s. Anyone remember those dancing flowers?
Technology has advanced quite a bit since that time (shocking, i know!), so it would be very possible to make mass market versions of Keepon with more movement options.
However, part of Keepon’s charm is his ability to react to people, following their movement, reacting to sounds by “looking” to see what and where the sound came from, etc. That, and the programing required to do those things is probably what’s keeping the mass market idea from being developed. That or you guys just don’t want to whore out your baby. heh.
Ready for pre-purchase registration at a moments notice,
Jason