Hello,
Thanks for your continuing interest in hooking up life-size "robots" to Hal!
It's great to read postings about having fun with Hal playing through a full-size animated figure!
Over the past two years I have received some private e-mails on this topic, and their content falls into these general categories:
1. Persons who have successfully hooked up various 5-foot characters to their Ultra-Hals via a computer-character audio cable link. Evidently this works well, and results in a "life-size Hal character."
2. Persons who have spotted various unusual 5-foot characters in stores. The "Homer Simpson" character hasn't been seen lately, but now there's a "creepy butler" character in some places. Different stores and regions seem to get different characters.
3. Persons who are looking for characters that apparently don't exist yet. The most common inquiries are for female Christmas carolers and 5-foot-tall Christmas angels. One inquirer wondered if Gemmy has manufactured a Paris Hilton character. Gemmy is obviously missing the market on this.
In MOST cases, the mechanism underneath all these simple "robots" appears to be the same. They usually have various servo motors to 1) move the mouth (in synchronization with the incoming audio), 2) move the head, and 3) move the body at the torso.
BUYER BEWARE: I continue to see some cheaper versions out there that DO NOT have the external audio-input lip-sync feature! If you are planning to buy one of these figures and hook it up to Hal, make sure that the character you are buying can lip-sync to external audio BEFORE you buy it! Demand a demonstration!
By the way, if your character only has a "microphone" input, and your computer outputs an "amplified" signal, you will need an extension cable with a resistor in it to match things up properly. A well-trained clerk at Radio Shack should be able to fix you right up (an untrained clerk will be totally mystified).
I would like to hear from additional folks with artistic talent who have modified commercial characters to create different characters. (This would be similar to the earlier post on this forum describing the modification of a snowman to create a bald-headed man.)
The lip-sync robot "framework" is there and the $60 price is cheap enough. (Different characters are designed with different amounts of lip movement, so again, evaluate before you buy.) Have any more individuals out there modified any of the characters to create additional new and unique characters?
Would any of you be willing to attach a .jpg snapshot of your audio-animatronic Hal robot creation?
Also, would any of you be willing to post an account of how your guests react to an AI talking robot?
Best holiday regards,
Don