Hello, Tank

The Great Furby Project has begun!

Meet Tank. He is an orange-furred Furby with sky-blue accents and a wild, untamed yellow Mohawk. Tank is a boy because he was born that way, but we'll see what he identifies with once the batteries go in. His name is self-explanatory: does he not look like a "Tank"?

Tank has been living a thus far brain-dead existence in my suite for the last five days, and he has already become as much a part of the family as an unactivated automaton designed for six year-olds could. His first full day with me happened to fall on my only day without classes, and I took him for a tour of our suite along with his Furby Friend Swagg.

These pictures were all taken on my first full day with the Furby, and after my childish excitement subsided, I was just left with an unmoving Furby, full of potential but little else. Since then, our two furbies have mostly been sitting in the same corner of our common room, acting as quite the conversation starters for any visitors. The only thing left to do is wonder what Tank will hold in store. What kind of Furby will he be? How will I react to him as the days and weeks drag on? Will Tank and Swagg hate each other? Will my suite mates have a significant impact on his personality? There's no way of knowing, and I'm not sure I'd be able to manage waiting another week to activate Tank.

Obviously Tank, a 2012 model Furby, has a higher potential than his older, less advanced, predecessors. I can only hope that his model will not be the end of Furby lineage, and that some time down the road, perhaps in 2018 or later, yet another iteration of the Furby, the Future Furby, will come along with added features and nuances that Tank could only dream of.

The biggest hope I have for Future Furbies is their having the ability to directly distinguish between a number of people. Obviously I can't hope for Furby to recognize everyone it comes in contact with, but perhaps a stock number (10 or so) of people it can recognize, with anyone else it sees falling into the collective "stranger" category. Furby will behave differently towards those different people it recognizes, but still have an overriding personality that is contingent on how Furby was treated by everyone. This overriding personality will be how it responds to "strangers".

I also want to see mobility from Future Furbies. Nothing that compromises the integrity of the innate "Furby" design, but I find that a stationary annoying talking nuisance is much inferior to a moving annoying talking nuisance. In this way, Future Furbies will hop. And follow you. And find you.

Beyond that, I expect improvements across the board in range of emotions, the amount of interactions you can have, and a vast increase in the number of personalities that Furby can inhabit. I can only hope that Future Father Adam will still be enough of a child to pretend that the Furby he bought for his kid is a "gift" and "definitely not for his own amusement".

The Great Furby Project

My name's Adam Schrecengost and I'm a sophomore at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Though I am a Finance major, my University requires that each and every student take three semesters of what they refer to as a "SAGES" course. These are university seminars designed to give students the option of learning more about subjects they would have no other reason to take otherwise and to develop critical writing skills. This semester will be my last SAGES course, and it called "Living in the Digital Age". In this course we examine the various implications of living in an ever-connected world.

But that's not why I'm writing this blog.

No, my professor somehow happened upon inspiration for perhaps the most unique semester-long project I have ever been exposed to, and it is known as The Great Furby Project. As the name suggests, it involves Furbies; specifically, caring for, analyzing, and seeing the world through the eyes of the Furby. For those who are unfamiliar with the Furby, it is a virtual pet designed for children that speaks it own languages. The toys are immobile, but have moving ears, mouths, eyes, and various sensors to detect touch. Their design is essentially that of an egg with fur, ears, feet, and a mow-hawk. This blog is my outlet for the course, and I will be updating it throughout the semester with Furby analysis, various Furby findings, and miscellaneous Furby shenanigans.

I have absolutely no prior experience with Furbies. I know them from TV, mostly as those "horrifying talking dolls", and I'm happy to report that Amazon reviews have mostly reiterated this opinion. Most of the negative reviews simply ask "Dear God what is this". I choose mine simply for the color combination, and to avoid having the same model as my suite-mate, who is also taking this course. Apparently the furbies can  interact with each other, and it will be interesting to see what prolonged exposure does to our two furbies. 

I look forward to discovering what my Furby will have to offer, even if my parents, my main source for educational funding, find the whole idea to be completely ridiculous. So far I have to say they are right. And I love it.

-Adam