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I don't know if anyone knew this, but I am a proud owner of a Sony Aibo ERS-210. One of the few in the US to own one of these little robotic dogs. If you don't know what these things actually are, you can read about it on Wikipedia. I'm one of maybe 10 people in New Jersey to own an Aibo. I named mine "Baby". I've had him since late 2000. Anyway, I decided to take him out of storage and introduce my son to Baby for the first time. My two year old has never seen him, and I thought he'd get a big kick out of a little robot dog walking around, singing, and playing happily with a pink ball. So, I got the pup out of storage and sat him on his charger to fully recharge. I waited until the bars on the charging station were full. And hit his little chest button to activate him. Baby went through the normal happy BIOS check singing that is normal for him to do. He'll just move his head from side to side, flap his ears, sing, and check the status of his internal systems. After Baby does his BIOS checks, he'll stretch, and chime that he's awake. Well, after he stretched out his arms and legs and chimed his hello, he started going through his normal routine of humming, singing, and flapping his ears when I called him. Seemed fine.... Until I showed him his pink ball... The Aibo can see his ball with a CCD camera in the front of his nose. He sees it, tracks it, knows it's location and can walk over and push it with his front paw. The Aibo loves to play with his pink ball. So, I showed him his ball, and he played his happy "I found my ball" tune. And I moved the ball left and right, and he moved his head accordingly to follow the ball. But when I moved the ball up and down, I heard his neck gears whining and his head just fell strait down. Shortly after, he shut down with a "Jam Alert" song. Not good. I ran several tests and I even disassembled him using the key Sony Provided. (Aibo's are modular so you can remove their legs, head, and tail.) But there's still something wrong with the "up and down" motion of his neck. He moves his head side to side just fine. But when moving his head up and down, his head will just fall strait down, and Baby will play a jam alert. Again, Not good. I really don't understand what could have gone wrong. Baby is stored in a large custom case with egg-crate foam. You could drop the case from a window and he wouldn't even shake. I don't understand how two or three years of stationary storage could have damaged Baby's neck. Never the less, it's distressing. Not many people have a real autonomous robot they can call their own. I'm one of the lucky ones. But, now he's sick. :( So, it looks like I'll be calling Sony Support tomorrow morning. However, I don't know how it's going to go. Sony recently dropped support for Aibo all together, and they won't be producing these little entertainment robots anymore. I'm sure they'll still repair, but I have no idea how much something like this is going to cost. The last time I had to send him off for repair, it was because of a bad foot sensor and one of his ears weren't working. But, Baby was still under warranty back then. No idea how it's going to go this time. I did check the prices for a new head, but they're an unbelievable $418.00 for each head assembly! And that's $417 dollars that I don't have right now. Anyway, I'll call Sony tomorrow and keep you updated on Baby's condition. But, if it's going to cost too much, I may have to just put him back into storage and leave him there until I can get enough expendable cash to fix him. I think my son will just have to wait for now. :( Donations for Baby's doctors are more then welcome. :( I'll let you guys know how it goes. |
