I suspect someone from Anki was watching Wall-E (not the first to notice that see verge article http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12007772/anki-cozmo-robot-ai-toy-wall-e-pixar) when they designed Cozmo it sounds, looks a bit like and has cuteness of Wall-E; but resembles the little cleaning robot M-O (which it is hard not to like); all crossed with a cute bulldozer. That is two ‘cutes’ in one sentence – this is a robot has this in abundance. From saying your name, to excitedly tapping the blocks, to victory dances when it wins a game. This is a smart little robot full of a lot of features that are revealed over the days you play with it.
The video from the manufacturer, Anki, above gives some idea of the technical aspects of it.
Anki have already produced an open-source SDK https://developer.anki.com/en-gb that is Python-based.
Powering up Cozmo for the first time and connecting to the App is relatively easy and quickly you are into playing with it (I am trying not to say him or her).
It is not, at the time of writing, available in the UK; I ordered mine from amazom.com and it arrived within two weeks.
My personal view is Cozmo is worth the price (I paid $179.99 + shipping, etc), the Anki team behind have made this a small robot that packs in a lot of user experience. You want to play with it, and hear it say your name or watch it win or lose in a game with you. I am looking forward to trying to program it - but maybe first I will just go and have another game of tapping the blocks, or through AR watch it picking up the blocks from its perspective, or...
SDK
Installation guide - http://cozmosdk.anki.com/docs/initial.html
All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon
