Maker

www.makezine.com/08/interview

“Pleo’s movement has ‘noise.’

That’s what makes it organic.”

In his years as a performer, Chung became a master of props and mechanics. “We got a gig on the Queen Mary in Long Beach to entertain the tourists,” says Schwartz. “They couldn’t afford animatronics, so they hired mimes.” It was here that the duo created their first notable bit, “Caleb 9000.” Chung did a spot-on robot routine while Schwartz, offstage, supplied his voice. At the end of the bit, Caleb 9000 says, “Absolutely nothing can go wrong … wrong … wrong” and then blows up, courtesy of a remotely triggered explosive pack Chung designed.

So what’s the connection between mime and robotics? “Caleb is a superb actor,” says Schwartz. “It’s a key skill that game and robotics animators need to learn. As a mime, you’re also super-aware of your body, of motivated movement, the physical cues to emotion.” Chung’s ability to tell a story via movement, to play a cartoon character, to suspend disbelief, and to think like a kid is uniquely suited to dreaming up innovative toys or convincing you that an anima-tronic dinosaur is emotionally aware.

Not surprisingly, the inspiration for all of Chung’s work is his fervent belief in, yes, magic. “The first books my mother read to us were Tolkien’s,” he says. “Fantasy and magic were an integral part of my upbringing. They’ve become an integral part of my product design. I want to transmit that wonder.”

Not just via robots, mind you, but via random acts of surrealism. Take Chung’s interest in, um, fairies. On an island near his house, Chung collects sticks and makes little fairy furniture that he leaves all over the island — a little chair, a tiny broom, maybe a bassinet with a walnut “baby” inside. With a diamond-bit drill, he even carves pseudo-hieroglyphics onto stones. “If you actually found one, you’d never think someone put it there, because it’s too frickin’ obsessive. But I want to change how people view the world.”

34 Make: Volume 08

A Tale of Two Furbys

After visiting Chung and meeting the lovable Pleo, it’s easy to take a sip of Ugobe’s Kool-Aid. Chung is intelligent, charismatic, and clearly dedicated to making Pleo a breakthrough. The question is, can he deliver? Ugobe expects to release Pleo in March 2007, but the units I saw — only seven months before release — didn’t seem very close to prime time. Still, robotic innovation hardly runs like clockwork, so ship dates are always fluid.

But the dispute over Furby — the robotic toy that made Chung’s reputation and fortune — casts a shadow over Chung’s current efforts. Chung, who was responsible for the design of Furby’s mechanics, tells one story about how Furby came to be.

David Hampton, the co-inventor responsible for the programming and electronics, tells a rather different one, which is mostly corroborated by several former executives from Tiger Electronics, the company that licensed Furby. (Tiger was bought by Hasbro the day after Furby’s debut at the 1998 International Toy Fair in New York.) The engineer brought in to “save” the project contributes still another angle.

What most everyone (including Chung) agrees on is that 1) the mechanics for the Furby prototype that was going to be demo’d at the Toy Fair didn’t work; 2) mechanical engineer Richard Maddocks’ last-minute assistance helped get Furby working in time; and 3) after the Toy Fair, Chung was bumped off the project.

The rest of the story has multiple versions as to who did what, when, and why. On one hand, it’s clear that Chung bit off more than he could chew. While he was instrumental in developing the Furby concept and designing the mechanics, execution was another thing. Chung couldn’t use off-the-shelf parts; the tiny pulleys, gea_>rs,_>

Photography by Robert Luhn; Furby drawing by Kelly Heaton