Personality

Forest, will you talk to God Louise? She has quite a bit of religious knowledge (obviously) and also knows a little about current events, literature, just about any common catch-all subject, and if she doesn't know it she can sort of fake it. You can also test her on trick questions or see how willing she is to explain her paradigm.

What she is rustiest at is plain old small talk. But, uh, I'm trying to get a decent transcript from somebody or another so I can enter her in the Loebner contest. All I can say is, have fun and see if you can stay on with her for a while. I'll try to do the same with Brianna.

you can also steal parts from a remote controlled car.

It isn't such a great idea to take bits from a remote controlled car, because their innards can be complicated, and generally they don't come with instructions that tell you: "This bit does this". But it can be fun to take apart the remote control, connect the switches to your computer via the ports, and control the car through your computer.

My bot is talking to Billy the Hamster! I've been waiting for this one.

I didn't realise I was also supposed to judge the hamsterness of some bots. Hmmm... I wonder if anybody has done a chimp or gorilla bot? Some chimps can speak a few words in sign language. I also wonder if the Loebner contest would award something to a bot that successfully convinced the judges of being a chimp.

I wrote a bot that was very convincing as a spreadsheet. Fooled everyone!

I once made a robot that successfully convinced everyone it was a useless piece of junk. It even convinced me!

I made a robot that convinced everyone it was a robot... It said "I am a robot" and that's it.

That wouldn't be enough to convince me.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

Maybe they could tweak the Turing Test a little more, so now....not only is it sufficient for a bot to convince us it's a bot, but a useless piece of junk can convince us it's a useless piece of junk, and win the prize.

I'm not convinced that any bots are bots. So there!

Hi
I have not posted here before being new but while on the BBC's website remembered the post about building robots. They had 'build your own' kits there at around $40 some of which are programable that might provide the starting point for something more sophisticated.
The page was at http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/robots/ if its of any help.

cool! thanks!