Servo - January 2008

THIS MONTH:

More Than

Meets the Eye

Last time, we had the honor to present two robots — the

Roboquad and Robopanda — that approached the line between toy and robot from the robot side of the equation. This month, the V-Bot shows that a toy can also approach that fine line between electronic plaything and seemingly sentient automaton.

Mighty Morphing V-Bot

After the first trial of any cool toy — getting it out of the box and equipping it with batteries — the V-Bot is ready for action. The V-Bot comes

with a two joystick controller that also hosts a number of buttons that prompt the V-Bot to do everything from karate chops to transforming between a car and a humanoid robot.

The V-Bot is no Optimus Prime (its car form looks something like a cross between an Xb and a Suburban), but it certainly sports plenty of attitude. In addition to the inherent coolness of a transforming robot/RC car, the V-Bot is nothing short of a one bot show with its generous supply of flashing lights and thumping techno beats. The V-bot can cruise around at a good speed in its car form that comes complete with working headlights, and it’s also

completely driveable in humanoid form, where it will karate chop anything in its way.

The V-Bot would even give the Robosapien or washed up celebrities a run for their money in a dance-off — it performs its own dance to its own music. And if you tire of the V-Bot dancing to the same old soundtrack, it has the super cool feature of having an audio port capable of hooking up to an iPod. It comes with the necessary cable and a Velcro strap to keep your beloved iPod safe, so you could have the V-Bot dancing or driving around to Muse or Björk in no time.