for some decades glisten has held robotics design contests of varying mission objectives. one of the most popular entry fields was artificial animal programming and for a few years rats drew large interest in both the programmers and the spectators who linked in to see how realistic a robotic rat could be. in later contests the drive was towards cartoon-like characters rather than real animal behavior - one winning entry performed a dancing routine with a cane and tophat. many of the contest winners (and some that didn't win but proved popular anyway) were mass-manufactured as childrens' toys. in most of these toys the ability to update or alter the program was disabled, but in some of these that step was not taken or could be bypassed. in addition many of these toys were manufactured not with new cpu's and memory boards, but recycled ones, some of them very powerful. further, many contest entries had no reprogramming safeguards at all and deliberately used very high-end hardware. some of these ended up lost or passed on at random.
arby the roborat is a (rich) childrens' toy, programmed to act like a real pet rat, friendly and personable. he will key-in on an owner, "recognizing" him as such, "squeeking" to communicate, and will respond to calls to come. if his owner disappears he will "mope" for several days and then seek a new owner. all of his motor routines are autonomous and located on-board. in addition he has many non-rat routines - he will follow simple verbal instructions, he likes to play roll-the-ball, and if any girls or women jump up on a table and scream on seeing him he will find a small platform, climb up on it, and start waving his paws and squeeking in mockery of them. he also senses and maintains his own power levels, and will plug himself in if provided with the necessary outlet and plug. if damaged he will announce this (the only time he speaks) and will keep announcing it until someone rescues and tends him, or he runs out of power.
arby is mostly stainless steel, very closely resembles a real rat, and is highly articulated and very flexible. he has rubber footpads allowing him nearly noiseless walking and the ability to keep his footing on sloped surfaces. he has human-level vision, rat-level hearing, rat-level touch with his whiskers, basic touch-awareness over the rest of his structure, and a rat-level olfactory capability (and he uses his sense of smell to recognize his "owner"). he has short-range comms and can transmit all of his data, allowing his status and phsical pose and sensory input to be displayed on a computer screen. he also has a physical jack for recharging and for physical data transfer and program access.
if arby's memory is not burned in and extra memory is available then his programs may be altered or supplemented with further instructions. sometimes even if his regular routines are burned in the rest of his memory is available and can access his motor routines, thus it may be possible to give him a "split personality". he makes a great jump project for a programmer.
arby's structure is a tech 15 machine, a product of glisten's advanced maufacturing capability. those with robotics skill level 1 have little hope of successfully working on him and stand some chance of damaging him, level 2 has good chance of successful work and little chance of damage, and level 3 is fully competent to work on him. for mechanical skill add one skill level to achieve the same results. arby's cpu and memory may be anything at all, from tech 11 on up, and the memory may be of any capacity at all. programmers of any level may make an attempt to alter or supplement his programming with normal chances of success/failure/damage.
comm range typically is 100 yards under good conditions. time to recharge under normal loading conditions is usually around 12 hours and takes 0.5 hours. weight is about half a pound.
(no, arby cannot be rigged to carry lasers or emit sonic death blasts. he's a toy, not a weapon.)
arby the roborat is a (rich) childrens' toy, programmed to act like a real pet rat, friendly and personable. he will key-in on an owner, "recognizing" him as such, "squeeking" to communicate, and will respond to calls to come. if his owner disappears he will "mope" for several days and then seek a new owner. all of his motor routines are autonomous and located on-board. in addition he has many non-rat routines - he will follow simple verbal instructions, he likes to play roll-the-ball, and if any girls or women jump up on a table and scream on seeing him he will find a small platform, climb up on it, and start waving his paws and squeeking in mockery of them. he also senses and maintains his own power levels, and will plug himself in if provided with the necessary outlet and plug. if damaged he will announce this (the only time he speaks) and will keep announcing it until someone rescues and tends him, or he runs out of power.
arby is mostly stainless steel, very closely resembles a real rat, and is highly articulated and very flexible. he has rubber footpads allowing him nearly noiseless walking and the ability to keep his footing on sloped surfaces. he has human-level vision, rat-level hearing, rat-level touch with his whiskers, basic touch-awareness over the rest of his structure, and a rat-level olfactory capability (and he uses his sense of smell to recognize his "owner"). he has short-range comms and can transmit all of his data, allowing his status and phsical pose and sensory input to be displayed on a computer screen. he also has a physical jack for recharging and for physical data transfer and program access.
if arby's memory is not burned in and extra memory is available then his programs may be altered or supplemented with further instructions. sometimes even if his regular routines are burned in the rest of his memory is available and can access his motor routines, thus it may be possible to give him a "split personality". he makes a great jump project for a programmer.
arby's structure is a tech 15 machine, a product of glisten's advanced maufacturing capability. those with robotics skill level 1 have little hope of successfully working on him and stand some chance of damaging him, level 2 has good chance of successful work and little chance of damage, and level 3 is fully competent to work on him. for mechanical skill add one skill level to achieve the same results. arby's cpu and memory may be anything at all, from tech 11 on up, and the memory may be of any capacity at all. programmers of any level may make an attempt to alter or supplement his programming with normal chances of success/failure/damage.
comm range typically is 100 yards under good conditions. time to recharge under normal loading conditions is usually around 12 hours and takes 0.5 hours. weight is about half a pound.
(no, arby cannot be rigged to carry lasers or emit sonic death blasts. he's a toy, not a weapon.)
