A

B

C

(like turning Pleo upside down) and a response (Pleo laughing or crying) changes. “It’s almost like muscle memory,” says Sosoka. It doesn’t dictate how Pleo will react every time an event occurs, but Pleo’s past experience will influence his future choices.

Illustrations courtesy of Ugobe (A, B, C). Illustration courtesy of Mack Fraga Studios (D)

The other key factor in Pleo’s reactions? Emotions. (Well, what passes for emotions in a $250 robot.) The factors that really control Pleo are his drives — hunger, bonding, fatigue — and the goals associated with them. If Pleo’s hungry, the goal is food, and the preprogrammed strategy Pleo picks to meet this goal is based on which one worked best in the past. It’s kind of like fuzzy logic: rules combined with sophisticated probability with a little sloppiness allowed. In an unusual situation, emotions — colored by Pleo’s success or failure, someone hitting or petting him, etc. — act as a secondary control system. It’s why Pleo should have many different reactions to a given stimulus over time.

From Mime to Machine Pleo’s ultimate stimulus, of course, is Caleb Chung. Chung has pushed, prodded, and pulled Pleo into existence with a scary singleminded-ness. “He’s a character — a mad scientist,” says Ivy Ross, a former Mattel executive who worked with him on the Miracle Moves Baby doll.

D

A. Pleo is a proportionately correct baby camarasaurus robot. B. An exoskeleton provides support. C. Motors, gears, and linkages provide realistic movement. D. Sight, sound, and touch sensors are hidden under the hide.

“He has a vision and relentless drive to bring something alive.”

Gary Schwartz, longtime friend and Chung’s mime partner, says simply, “He’s the irrepressible kid, the incarnation of Tom Hanks in Big, pure inspiration, pure yin, but with the emotional savvy of a 50-year-old.”

How did Chung get from street mime to toy-robot maven? At first glance, Chung’s resume looks like a hodgepodge of careers. He went from performing mime (as part of the Schwartz & Chung comedy team in the 70s and early 80s), to voicing live-action TV cartoon characters (he was QT the Orangutan in Dumbo’s Circus).

By chance, he applied for and got a job devising cutting-edge toys for Mattel’s R&D group. Later, his knack for creating props led to work designing mechanical effects for such films as Total Recall. Since the late 90s, he’s consulted with various toy companies, helped develop Furby, and ultimately, decided to tackle Pleo. _>>

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