The Chronicles of Narco Pleo - February 23rd, 2008 - Narco Table Dances

Hi folks! It's been a while since our latest update, mostly because we have been experimenting alot more with the Aibo instead of Narco.

Today though, the kids and I were housebound and the table was clean, so I decided to let Narco roam around while the kitchen was being cleaned.

He did quite well with edge detection, and even seemed to notice the placemats on the table. The girls pet and cooed to him and of course he hammed it up big time for them!

I tried a couple times to put Narco into 'watchdog mode' but the kitchen seemed to be too noisy and bright, and then there were the children (any form of touch interaction seems to undo the watchdog mode) touching him non-stop.

I hope to have Narco out and about more often. Just have to control the wild kids!

The Chronicles of Narco - Jan 26 2008 - Watchdog Narco

This was the new Narco's 6th battery charge.

I received a couple requests to make a good video demonstrating how to put a Pleo into watchdog mode.
I love requests, so here you go!


Let me know if you would like any further explanation or instruction!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Chronicles of Narco - Jan 25 2008 - Narco, Meet Max

This was the 5th battery charge for the new Narco.
For anyone interested, the first Narco has been returned due to the tail issues. Narco lives on through the new fella.
In my opinion, if there was actually a distinct personality in the current limited LifeOS there is no way I could have named the new Pleo "Narco" and just sent the old one away so easily. However, since they were pretty much identical in sounds and actions (just like every other Pleo I've seen in online videos) I have no problem at all keeping the name alive in a different "shell".

For this post we have a 'Pleo meets Aibo' video for you. I know that there have been others of this type already, but I guess it's just my turn to do it. For your information, Narco is a Pleo (as you already know) and Max is a Sony Aibo ERS-7m3.
There are several cute sections in the video - I hope you enjoy it!

The Chronicles of Narco - Jan 18 2008 - Edge Detect 2

This was the 3rd battery charge for the new Narco.
I set up to try a suggestion sent to me regarding the color camera and edge detection. The suggestion was to cover up the camera and see if Pleo can detect edges by any other means.
The video says it all:


Thanks for stopping by!

The Chronicles of Narco - Jan 9 2008 - Before and After Pictures

Here are pictures of Narco side-by-side with Random, for comparison of paint and foot wear.
My only real concern is the foot wear. I personally like the paint wear (on the skin).

The Chronicles of Narco - Jan 8 2008 - Who's the New Guy?

For Narco's 18th battery charge he got to experience another Pleo's very virst battery charge!
Random was hatched last night while Narco stood by, watching. The video pretty much says it all. So far the two Pleos really only communicated by yelling/calling to each other. I'm hopeful there's a little more to it than yelling in each others' faces.
One thing of note is that Narco made some noises that he had never made in the first 17 charges. We mention this in the video so you can tell where/when it happens.

Here is the video:


Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions for future experiments/tests/interactions!

The Chronicles of Narco - Jan 7 2008 - Wear House

For Narco's 17th battery charge there was no video (just general playing and exploring with no experiment or specific behavior to record) but I did take new pictures of paint wear.

Here are the photos:

















Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave comments/suggestions for future blog entries!