The Chronicles of Narco - Dec 26 2007 - A 5yr old experiences Narco and my first "Autonomous Pleo" experiment

Today I finally let my 5yr old daughter see and play with Narco for his 6th battery charge. My 2yr old daughter was napping and still hasn't seen the Pleo yet (she's way too crazy for this little guy).
The 5yr old loves animals and is, in general, very timid. You can see in the videos that she's both excited and hesitant with Narco. Overall, she's a big fan of Pleo. You can see in the videos, however, that's she's an even bigger fan of the kid's digital camera she got for Christmas yesterday!

Here are the five videos from today, in YouTube playlist form again.


While I typed this entry, Narco finished up his 7th battery charge. Tonight's experiment was to power Narco on in the middle of the living room floor and let him explore with no physical interaction (sound alone), touching him only to wake him up.
The results? Disappointing, unfortunately.
Narco ran for 75 minutes and fell asleep 13 times - 14 if you count when the battery died. It really did seem like every 5 1/2 to 6 minutes I had to go nudge him to wake him up. We talked to him regularly and even yelled at him when he was looking sleepy. The only thing that worked was nudging his back after he dozed off.
Exploration? He spent about 60 minutes in one 3ft by 3ft area walking into a recliner and into a corner, sniffing,growling and barking at them each time. Only twice did he face out into the open room and then he would turn himself around and walk back into the corner again or growl at the wall.
He did a fair bit of grazing. He picked imaginary food off of the floor 8 times.
He had his normal short coughing fits 4 times.

It really started to get predictably repetitive when I'd see him turn to walk into the corner again... I knew he was going to say "huh?", raise his head and say "hrmmmm", then squat back and growl. He did that 4 times - each time the same actions.
He spent quite some time looking and talking to the side of a blank brown cardboard box.

First exploration experiment: not too much exploration, not at all exciting, barely interesting and, most of all, too predictable.
I definitely would have enjoyed myself more if I were on the floor playing with Narco, like the previous 5 battery charges. In this first "autonomous Pleo" experiment, I'd say the autonomous part failed to live up to expectations.

I still like the little green guy :)