Hi All
Introducing the AIMEC:EZ1
We are in discussions with DJ to produce a special version of our AIMEC (Artificially Intelligent Mechanical Electronic Companion) robot for the EZ-B, this will be a very advanced robot that will be made available in kit form, which will probably be by the end of this year.
Some history, the first AMI (Applied Machine Intelligence) robot was the AIMEC:3 which is a "hyper-tech" toy and we were very close to licensing this design to a large US toy manufacturer, but the deal fell through. Our most advanced robot is the AIMEC:4 which is still in development, this robot has advanced voice recognition (Dragon 11), face recognition and eye tracking and object recognition the robot has an advanced Ai core and is capable of self learning. When we came across the fantastic EZ-B system that the genius DJ Sures produced we immediately thought that it would be really cool to make a EZ-B version and this is what we are currently developing the AIMEC:EZ1. This robot is the development platform for a ground breaking robotics kit that we plan to sell to the general public, for the first time a highly advanced robot will be available (in various versions) at a price that hobbyists would be able to afford.
I have been building robots for over 30 years and some of my designs are recorded on Cybernetic Zoo
http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=2280
http://cyberneticzoo.com/?p=3984
On our team we have the brilliant model maker (and engineer) Steve Cole (Articole Studios) http://www.articolestudios.co.uk/ who is also a member of this forum @ukrobotman, with Alex Cole on 3D design and (the incredibly talented) Mike Hodgson on software development. I am doing mechanical, electronics and sensor designs and firmware development for support PIC microcontrollers that enhance the EZ-B boards operation over the I2C bus.
We are all looking forward to working closely with DJ and his team in the new future!
Tony
-- Conceptioneering Ltd - Inventors of the Award Winning Cube World To see Product Innovation - visit our website at www.conceptioneering.co.uk To see Robotic Innovation - visit our website at www.appliedmachineintelligence.co.uk
Toy maker can you post a link and description , I would like to check them out. Thanks.
Josh, they will not ship them outside the UK, thats why I have personally sent some out to Pat, Mel, Dave and Rex. I can spare a couple for you if you want to try them out?
Tony
These are sweet little motors. I wish I could buy them here in the US but thanks to Tony I have a few. Thanks again Tony!
I love the control boards. I with you had them complete and for sale! cool
yes, it is a nice little motor.
Oh nice! Will be eagerly anticipating this!
Tony, I like the progress on your AIMEC EZB robot development. The new arm looks fantastic. I am currently building arms for my robot Captain Ann Droid. I also bought a female mannequin for a new project, but it needs heavy duty shoulder servos. I like large robots. Do you have a projected date when the AIMEC EZ2 robot might be available? Looking forward to the new EZB4 and your AIMEC EZ@ robot! Thank you, Steve S
Hi Steve
Unfortunately, in now looks like we will not be entering into the hobby robot market, the fact is there does not seem to be enough demand to warrant setting up the huge infrastructure required. The other big problem is that very few people (in the hobby market) would want to spend this amount of money even on a very advanced robot like the EZ:2. Demographics are also a part of this equation, where most of our business would come from the US, but transit costs for a large 4 foot tall robot from the UK are going to be huge, we estimate it could be up to a third of the cost of the actual robot itself! I have recently noticed others on the forum are now going to offer custom large robots but being US based they will have the advantage of much lower delivery costs, and quite frankly there is not enough room for 2 players in this very limited market so this makes our current decision seem even more like being the right thing to do.
So our plans now are to sell the EZ:2 robot into education sectors across the World and maybe selling some pre-built EZ:2 robots through distributors like Robot Shop, Active Robots etc.
The others forum members will probably make great large size custom robots but I guess they will not be able to offer the EZ:2 features like true face and object recognition together with a real self-learning Ai (a product of 6 years work), and low cost precision worm based smart servos. Anyway I wish them all the luck with their endeavor and they should certainly find a very nice niche business if they stay with the EZ-B.
I have made some great friends here on the EZ-B forum and will always continue to help with things where I can and will also still keep you all updated with the cool things that we are doing with the EZ:2 robot if there is still interest in the project. But I don't want to get your hopes up that there will be a fully featured kit robot available later this year because this is now unlikely.
Also Steve, I can send you some Bosch motor drives if you want to give them a try, let me know.
Tony
@Toymaker
Have you considered splitting off the higher margin software and still providing it to the hobby market without the hardware? I for one would be very interested in the mentioned recognition features (particularly if there was a way to plug them into ARC without writing my whole robot interface with SDK's), and would happily pay for them.
I agree with your demographic analysis for the hardware. I would probably not have been in the market for your robot kit even if the shipping cost was not so high. I am more interested in making from assorted bits and parts than putting together from a kit. I think there probably is a kit market, but I would imagine it is fairly limited in size.
Alan