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A resource for GUPI, the world's first electronic guinea pig Intro - Facts - Tips - Where to buy - Discussion - Dismantling - Gallery - Links |
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FactsGUPI I, GUPI II or GUPI III?You'll see different types of GUPI on the Internet. The three versions are rarely distinguished on each site, but they're fairly easily told apart. The first GUPI (Mark I) was larger, with a more elevated snout, as shown here. It came with both a carrot and a feeding bowl, had edge detection sensors (presumably removed because they meant the GUPI wouldn't easily go from room to room or across a patterned carpet) and could do quite a bit less. Here's a comparison table:
As you can see, you need to make sure you buy the GUPI Mark III if at all possible. In all the text on this site, I'm talking about a modern GUPI Mark II or III. SensorsSo what can GUPI do? On its bottom are four legs/wheels (the one is integrated with the other, fairly cleverly), enabling it to move around as it wants to, in any direction, forwards and backwards. Infrared sensors in its eyes and on its nose help it find its way around and stop it bumping into obstacles. Light sensors in its eyes tell GUPI when it's in the dark. An attitude sensor in the body detects when it's horizontal (i.e. free to move around) and when it's vertical (i.e. being held nose-up and cuddled). A pressure sensor on GUPI's back lets it respond to being stroked. A similar sensor between the eyes also acts as a master control to send GUPI to sleep or wake it up again. The carrotThe carrot is interesting, letting you (at the press of button) send out an infrared beam that GUPI picks up and homes in on. It's also featured at charging time (i.e. GUPI eating its carrot). MovementGUPI's movements are fun to watch, psuedo-random (subject to your furniture layout and carrot tempting) and not too noisy. The legs/wheels do need a fairly level and smooth surface to work on, so you might have to help GUPI out on thick carpet or uneven pavement outside. Sound effectsThere are a couple of dozen different sound effects, all well done, ranging from cute 'ahh' noises to grumpy 'uh-oh' sounds when it's fed up or hungry. LearningAs you'll see from the table above, there are a number of states that GUPI can be in. In practice, you don't need to worry about this too much, 99% of the time your GUPI will either be behaving normally or asleep. You just need to know that it needs lots of stroking after your first turn it on and a little patting on the back by obstacles for the first few minutes of its life. I'm not sure why this training period is necessary; maybe there an internal setting for the infrared which needs to be calibrated? Battery lifeIn practice, you can get about half an hour's run-time out of each charge. This doesn't seem like long, but after a minute or two of exploring with no human interaction at all (i.e. you or your child has gone off and forgotten about it) it puts itself to sleep. In an average day in the family household, you'll just need to put GUPI on charge at night. All text on these pages is Copyright Steve Litchfield, 2005, 2006 |
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Recent news has seen
the introduction of the Mark III GUPI, with Thumbs Up UK Ltd having bought the
rights to GUPI from Cutting Edge Toys. Now under a proper UK manufacturer,
there have been some further improvements. Externally identical to the Mark II,
with the softer fur and cuter body shape, there have been some changes under
the hood (or should I say under then 'skin'?)