Control Robosapien with your wiimote

Robosapien Dance Machine (or Robodance to use it’s other, slightly catchier, moniker) is a free open source program that “unleashes your Robosapien’s funky inner soul!” Translation: it’s cool, freebie software that makes your Robosapien dance like it’s 1999… And soon it’ll have support for your wiimote.

As the sneak preview video above shows, you can now bin that complex, hard-to-learn (so I’m told) controller that ships with the miniature robot in favour of a standard wii controller and your voice. The swap requires that you use the new control through your PC, so it doesn’t quite have the same “function-anywhere” qualities that other remote control gadgets have, but what you gain - they say - is worth the trade. According to the Robodance website, the advantages of using your wiimote are:

Robot control is much easier and fun.
Use just one wiimote and your voice to control all supported robots.
Wiimote is wireless so you can hide it when doing skits for friends and family along with terrorizing the family pets.

Now correct me if I’m wrong here please, but isn’t the standard remote control also wireless? Never having had the pleasure of a Robosapien to keep me company on those cold, lonely nights I wouldn’t know but I’d guess that it would be. Anyway, just a thought, moving on…

An included script-editor will let users mix-up predetermined actions and wiimote direct control to give more realistic actions and motion. Going by the video it looks easy enough to use, so creating these custom scripts yourself should be a breeze. Or - if you think it looks a little too tricky - simply take the lazy route: download scripts created by other users from within the software and transfer them over to your own little plastic buddy. Let someone else do all that stuff. Easy.

The current version of Robodance already allows you to control your robots with just your voice but, Nintendo fans, don’t get too excited. This new wii functionality is still in the testing stages. Expect to conquer the world with nothing but your wiimote and mini robot army this February.

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