Obedient Little Elf

This could either go in the "other bots" category or the "toy list". It was created to help children speak Mandarin, and there are other language-teaching robots like My Robocom.

I wonder if this counts as a bootleg of Robocom too, or if the creators of Robocom's design were somehow involved with this (OEM), since there are a lot of unbranded toys and knockoffs which have the same designs as each other, and there is a radio based on Robocom which was not sold by Robocom's company.

Obedient Little Elf (听话小精灵) is a Furby knockoff (design-wise) from Anhui Zhongyuan Intelligence Science and Technology (安徽省中源智业科技有限公司), created with the main intention of teaching children to speak Mandarin.

The design patent for it was applied for on the 20th of May, 2003, and the publication and registration date for it is the 14th of January, 2004. Yan Wensheng and Su Lexin are credited as the designers.

Appearance

Important: The design shown in a patent can have some differences from the released version, and the company's website has an image where the beak is a darker shade of orange and the ears appear to be a different shade of blue. I don't know if both images or one of them depicts a released version of the toy.

The creature resembles a robotic version of a Furby, but is much rounder than an original Furby and has no fur. It has a silver body, a black, rectangular visor, an orange beak, a dark blue pair of ears and feet, and a circular indent on the left and right sides of its face. The bottom part of its beak is smaller than the top part.

It has three, round, orange buttons on top of its head, and a long, black wire that extends from its head with an orange microphone piece at its tip. Its eyes are a pair of LED lights in its visor which can change blue or red.

Functions

Its recordings were done by an announcer from the Beijing Radio & Television Station.

The robot has a total of 7 buttons/switches:

The robot uses voice recognition to understand what you say. When you switch the toy on, you can press the study button; it will prompt you to repeat after it and help you pronounce what it wants you to say. It can do this with Tang poetry.

Other types of content relating to children's songs, and speaking English are included in the Obedient Elf's training sessions with you. There are questions you can answer with 'yes', 'no', 'right', or 'wrong'.

After teaching you (Idk if it does this after one lesson or after multiple lessons), it will prompt you to speak to it, and you will be expected to press the dialogue button to start talking to it. It will ask questions and expect you to speak with a consistent intonation and tone.

Unless I'm mistaken, apparently, the lights in its visor will flash if the batteries are low.

Gallery

Trivia

Links