The Chronicles of Narco - Dec 30 2007 - Climb an Incline, Follow a Line 2, Edge Detection

For Narco's 10th battery charge we took on a couple things I received via email and comments, as well as revisiting the "Follow a Line" experiment.

For the setup I used a 4ft folding table with a piece of cardboard taped at one end and a 5 inch tall box on the other. The table was supported by a few of my daughters' books. So for those math magicians who can figure out the incline, it was a 4.5ft incline that went from the floor to 5 inches high.
From the floor to the end of the cardboard box, I taped a dark green ribbon.

One of the requests I received was to find out if Pleo can climb things. The short answer is "No, Pleo cannot climb anything." However, you can see in the video that Pleo can indeed make his way up a slight incline, given enough traction.
I hope this inspires someone to make themselves an elevated Pleo home. I'd consider it myself, but I don't have the room to leave it out in my house since the kids don't get to play with Narco. If I were to contruct it, it would be something like the setup in these experiments, but with a short wall around the outside to stop Narco from falling off. Since he doesn't lift his feet more than a few millimeters while walking, a border wall of just 1 inch should suffice. This would allow him to stick his head over the edge, but not walk off.

The other request for this round of testing was edge detection - specifically, does Pleo detect edges when walking backwards? Short answer - "No, Pleo does not detect edges when walking backwards."
It appears that the only edge detection is via sensors in Pleo's nose, so forward-detecting only. As seen in the video, edge detection when moving forward is a bit of hit-or-miss as well.

We spend more time interacting and playing with Narco during this session and you can clearly see where the happiness of Pleo owners comes from - Pleo is an absolute joy to play with!
I want to make sure everyone understands that, although the majority of what's on this blog seems to be negative towards the Pleo, it is simply testing and observation. In most video sessions (if not all) you will hear me say how much fun it is to play with Narco, but that he leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to actual "autonomy".
So - to be absolutely clear - I am very happy to own a Pleo, and Narco is a great joy to myself and my wife!

Here is the video from Dec 30 2007:


Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment and/or suggestions for future video!