It’s been about a decade since I’ve played with any RC toys, because frankly, remote control things sucked when I was a kid.

Like any young male, I had a remote controlled racecar or two, but while I was growing up, all RC cars suffered from Severe Battery Uselessness, or ‘SBU’, which is an acronym that I just made up. There was no cure. You could run an RC car for about 3 minutes on 37 D batteries or a clunky rechargeable battery, and out of nowhere, it would be stricken with immobility. The reasons for this were split even between total battery death and being incapacitated by a small stick in the driveway. Battery replacement was expensive, and battery recharging was a multi-hour process. So, I completely lost interest and retreated to the instant gratification of the Nintendo.

In my absence, RC technology has worked very hard to impress me, and it’s delivered the results in the form of Thinkway’s U-Command Wall-E RC robot.

Even though the eponymous Pixar film hasn’t been released, there are about a billion Wall-E toys out there – small action figures, stuffed dolls, dioramas, and a good handful of electronic light ‘n’ sound things. For those of us who can’t invest in the $190 Ultimate Wall-E Programmable Robot (which has robot geeks all a-buzz for all kinds of reasons), there’s the U-Command Wall-E, which retails for about $40-$50.

One of the challenges that’s always thwarted robot designers is the ability to create a ‘personality’ in their robotic creations. It’s now pretty evident that years of personality design could have been bridged by simply bringing an animator on board in the design process, since Wall-E (both the animated character and the RC toy) are replete with personality. It’s a psychologically interesting thing that despite being a box with expressive eyes, that’s all we need from Wall-E to get a good read on his personality, even without seeing the movie.

This is where the RC toy exceeds. It’s not a toy designed for speed, but the slow and steady working treads that the RC uses to move are a solid mode of transport. RCs with treads are a whole new world to me. Wall-E runs on 4 AA batteries, and the remote control runs on 3 more AA batteries. After a good 30 minutes of play, the batteries are still going strong.

Wall-E has 10 function buttons and 2 program buttons on an easy to hold infrared remote. The ‘forward and backward’ stick will indeed move Wall-E Forward, but pressing the stick back will execute a left turn, as Wall-E cannot reverse direction (and can’t turn right). These are basic things – but the neatness comes with the buttons on the right side of the controller.

The ‘music’ button will provoke Wall-E to play 4 or 5 different songs and dance differently to each one. The ‘eyes’ button will create all of the neat little movements and quirks that bring the robot to life, and the fish-shaped ‘special turn’ button will start a special chain of more personality-rich movements. The ‘box’ button creates sound effects.

The ‘sun’ button is an odd addition. Every so often, Wall-E will stop responding to commands, and for some bizarre design / personality reason, you need to press the ‘sun’ button to reactivate him. It doesn’t really interfere with play, but if you haven’t read the instruction manual and leapt right into play, this feature might be a little confusing. We finally have RC toys that can communicate consistently with their remotes and we add a feature to emulate noncommunication. Curious indeed.

The ‘program’ buttons allow you to hit any of these 10 buttons in any sequence and have Wall-E perform the strong of actions that you’ve determined, sending him into true automatic, robot mode.

If there’s a weakness in this giant mix of personality and charm, it’s that Wall-E falls backwards a lot. While the instructions suggest to run Wall-E only on flat, un-carpeted ground and to extend his arms fully forward in order to maintain balance, his movements have a kick to them (which is far better than being sluggish) that will toss him backwards. This requires uprighting Wall-E by hand, and I can’t help but wish for an extending panel or rod that would pop him back upright when this happens. Most balance issues can be resolved by keeping Wall-E’s movements steady and consistent instead of starting and stopping him a bunch.

Even as an action figure, Wall-E is a great display piece – a perfect addition to my robot and Pixar collections. While this version does not have an opening chest panel, it WILL however freak the heck out of your dog. Check out the video after the jump to see Wall-E in action. I like it a bunch, and it may have just reawoken my interest in the ever-improving world of RC.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.