Robopet behavior ideas

This could be a fun thread!

Let's see. My first recommendation is probably counter intuitive. But I
think it is the most important to make him interesting. Often exhibit
the behavior of doing nothing.

Nothing catches the eye more that abrupt movement that then stops
again.

Think about watching a cat. Most of the time when a cat is sitting
still, you will glance at it a moment and then look away. However, let
a cat be stalking prey, where it moves very occassionally, stops,
freezes, and after a long moment moves again. You find you are drawn to
watch, to see if it gets its prey or not. You will watch that much
longer than you will a cat walking passed a window moving in a constant
direction. Again, a cat playing, you see them burst in short motions,
then crouch and wait for a response before jumping in short flight
again.

So I'd advise what ever your choices of behaviors for him, if you want
to draw attention, change them often, and do not fear long moments of
pause, doing nothing.

--
Randy M. Dumse
www.newmicros.com
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear

Not to mention the fact that the more often he does nothing, the longer
he'll go between charges. Hmmmm, maybe that explains the cat
also....;-)

-Robotguy
http://robotguy.net/blog

I think that is right.

I made an argument not long ago in a long thread about behavior of the
essence, any robot that occassionally changes its behavior, even
randomly, looks more intelligent that one that does not.

In the same light, one that seems to react to its environment will look
more intelligent than one that does not.

Put in other words, if you cycle

1) suddenly in dark? 2) random sleep 3) wake up go light seeking. 4)
suddenly in light, random go dark seek

Will look more lifelike than one which does the opposite.

1) suddenly in light? 2) random sleep 3) wake up go light seeking. 4)
suddenly in dark, random go light seek

Both look more intelligent than one that does no sensing

1) random sleep 2) random go

If you want to make it truly interesting and engender emotions from
humans, make it react to human presence/attention. For instance, have a
"frightened" behavior, where if its ranger sensors see something moving
(i.e. the range sensors see something a range opening or closing faster
than its own speed would account for, go dark seek, random sleep.

Or perhaps on loud noises (do you have a microphone?) go dark seek,
random sleep.

The more interactive it is, the more it will seem interesting.

--
Randy M. Dumse
www.newmicros.com
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear

Wow, that's very true. I hadn't even thought of that. Thanks. I had
started considering reaction to human presence, but overlooked
environment completely.

Just also wanted to mention that I have been researching methods of
making Flik more "lifelike" by looking into animation techniques. I
figured that I could use the same sorts of methods that Pixar used to
make Luxo look alive to give Flik a personality. I have found some
quite interesting stuff. If anyone is interested, I'll post some links.

-Robotguy
http://robotguy.net/blog

Had another thought for you. I was watching the HBO series Rome last
night. The scene was the viewing of Ceasar's corpse. I though how hard
it must have been for that actor to lay there for the long shot and not
take even the slightest breath.

It occurred to me, we humans are very good about noticing very slight,
subtle, clues to tell if something is dead or alive. If you give your
robot a very low level output, even when it sleeps, it will seem more
life like than without. So perhaps your robot should snore when it
sleeps, or have a very dim "pulsating" LED, to give it the look of a
heartbeat or breathing cycle, rather than "playing possum" and looking
like the dead machine it really is.

--
Randy M. Dumse
www.newmicros.com
Caution: Objects in mirror are more confused than they appear

The OmniZero robot (one of the top Robo-One competitors), in the demo
phase of its last competition, feigned sleep very convincingly, using
small movements to make it appear that its chest was slowly moving up
and down.  It was subtle yet very compelling at the same time.  I don't
have a video link handy, but a search at robots-dreams.com might turn it
up.

Best,
- Joe

http://www.robots-dreams.com/2006/03/roboone_9_omniz.html

Wow. That was really nifty. He added several small touches to make the
robot appear "alive", like breathing motions and finger twitches. I
think what I may have to do is decide on an animal to emulate, and do
some serious observation to duplicate mannerisms and motion. Thanks for
pointing that out Joe!

PS. I added links to the animation stuff I found on my blog if anyone
wants to take a look. See the link in my sig.

-Robotguy
http://robotguy.net/blog