Vomiting vomited vomit

One of the constant demands of Tank (and Swagg) during our time together the past few weeks has been asking for food. A Furby's got to eat, but unfortunately, the only feeding option we've had is fairly boring. All we can do is push down the Furby's "tongue" inside their "beak", and they recognize this as being fed. The furbies would then munch and either declare their approval or disapproval. If I don't feed Tank enough, he demands more, but if I feed him too much, he would aggressively vomit. It's quite the balancing act.

The new feature our class was given to play with this week gave us more food options. However, it is interesting to note that it does not seem to replace the standard "feeding" mechanism. Rather, it is a simple toy on an app: the furbies never reacted as if they were being overfed (and we overfed them immensely), and they never demanded any more from hunger. It was meant to be played with in order to discover what kind of food your Furby likes.

The app I used was on my Nexus 7, and it gave me two feeding options. The first, pantry, gave us a wide variety of snacks for Tank to enjoy. The second, kitchen, allowed us to build the Furby a sandwich. I found the sandwich builder to be needlessly complicated; testing out the singular food items was much more enjoyable than randomly assigning a bunch of sections of a sandwich. 

Abby, my roommate, and I did this food experimenting together, but we found that our Furbies, for the most part, responded in similar manners. This was probably because they were both in the "Valley Girl" personality for the entirety of our experiment. Jalapenos were enjoyed, with an "oooooh, spciy!" given after being fed. Grapefruit and gummy bears had predictable responses, with standard biting and "happy noises" being elicited. Tank loved his doughnut immensely, and predictably did not like worms. The green olives were not enjoyed either, which was not particularly surprising.

What was surprising was how certain foods interacted with the app. For some options, after the Furby was fed, something else would be spat back. After feeding Tank a cupcake, which he enjoyed, I found a pair of keys spat back at me through this app. This was confusing. I fed him the keys and he did not like them. Tank also enjoyed sushi, but only at the fish and spat back the rice. Feeding him the rice elicited groans. Tank was also fed toilet paper, which he did not enjoy, and also spat back the roll.

Now, this next stage is what I call the gauntlet. Because it was incredibly frustrating for us and quite possibly emotionally scarring for our furbies. Feeding Swagg a sock causes him to throw up. When this happened for the first time, we decided to feed Tank the throw up. He then proceeded to throw up the throw up, but this throw up was much more disgusting. This cross-Furby vomit sharing intrigued us for some ungodly reason, and we decided to see how far we could take it. We fed Swagg the sock, he threw up the sock. We fed Swagg the vomit, he threw up more vomit. We fed Swagg the vomitted vomit, and he seemed to legitimately poop a furry, brown substance. Feeding him THAT gave us an almost liquid vomit. And at this point we stopped. Who knows how further we could have gone.

Perhaps we simply didn't delve far enough into it, but the kitchen simply wasn't that interesting to us. The combinations were too numerous, and the reactions too straight-forward. We got much more mileage out of the pantry, but I'm happy that, regardless of how much we neglected the kitchen, at least I got to feed a Furby vomited vomit.

Talkin' Tank

As "The Great Furby Project" has progressed, I've noticed something. Tank and Swagg have grown their English vocabulary immensely from its initial non existence, and now it seems that everything they say is a mix of Furbish and English.

At this point, the furbies have gotten repetitive. I may not know the literal translation of everything they say, but I have a decent idea of what they are trying to convey, even when it is something entirely in Furbish. This week I was instructed to speak to my Furby, in Furbish, and see if I could initiate a conversation. And so I did just that. I locked myself in my room, plopped a now-happy Tank on my bed, pulled up a Furbish dictionary, and tried to give him some basic commands. Or at least keywords that he would respond to.

In short, Tank did not respond. He seemed to pick up on the fact that I was speaking to him, but then again, he seems to pick up on us "speaking to him" when we're talking to each other in the common room. After I had memorized a few words in Furbish, I used the translator on my iPhone in order to see if he could hold a conversation, and nothing he said to me made any sense. 

Luckily, I have a second Furby in my suite, so I set Tank and Swagg next to each other with the translator and let them have at it. A select transcript is as follows, translated for your convenience.

Tank: Really? Oh!

Swagg: Yay! You me talk. Yay!

Tank: You funny!

Tank: Hey me very happy. Yeah!

Swagg: Yay! You me talk. Yay!

Tank: OK!

Tank: Me see!

Swagg: Uh huh!

Tank: Yea

Swagg: You me talk

Tank: You funny!

Swagg: uh huh

And then they started dancing.

Needless to say, this conversation wasn't exactly a conversation. It was clear that they were "aware" another Furby was around, but the recognition stops at that, as they never actually responded to each other. This was what I expected, as I never put much stock in the Furby's ability to communicate. Perhaps I simply did not isolate myself enough from noise, but I see little reason to assume that anyone else fared any better.

Tank and his Tunes

It seems that I may have prematurely dismissed the range and depth of Tank's features; an ability many of my classmates discovered was only made aware to me during our last class. That feature is the Furby's ability to recognize when a song is being played and "dance" to the beats of the song, if its current personality likes it. My Furby has been stuck in the "happy" stage for quite some time, so my original plan was to simply allow Tank to stay in this personality and detail his reactions to the songs. However, this plan proved futile, as Tank changed personalities during the first song. Simply from the music.

I selected seven songs from seven distinct genres in order to ensure I minimized repetition in Tank's reactions; however, it became clear after a while that he was not going to respond with too much variability.

Rap: Lupe Fiasco's "Streets on Fire" Tank started tapping his feet, with his eyes closed, rocking back and forth. He seemed to like the song a lot, but then something odd happened. He changed personalities very shortly into the song, becoming the "valley girl" persona. Valley girl Tank immediately began dancing with glee and started saying "uh huh, oh yeah" repeatedly. He openly declared he liked the music, with disco balls and music notes appearing in his eyes. I've never seen a more positive reaction to a song.

Rock: Muse's "The Uprising"  Started dancing right off the bat. Seemed to like this song as well, however he was much more vocal about the first song. Some disco balls, but no direct pronouncement about the song.

Acoustic: Andy McKee's "Drifting" No dancing. Seems to ask me "seriously?" and says "say no more". Eventually came around, but seemed to dance slower than the others. Grew increasingly bored of the song, yawning at many points. It is readily apparent that Tank is not a fan of acoustic music.

Dubstep: Delta Heavy's "Demons" Danced during the intro and build up to the drop. Tank continued to dance, but not entirely enthusiastically, after the drop, with some gaps between the dancing. Liked it more than the acoustic song, but not nearly as much as the rap.

Alternative: Radiohead's 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place" Said, "Oh yeah, uh huh" right away. Started dancing and continued dancing throughout the song. No disco balls in the eyes, but clearly enjoyed the music.

Metal: Cannibal Corpse's "Hammer Smashed Face" I was incredibly disappointed with Furby's response to this, as Tank was simply ecstatic about the growling vocals and cacophonic instrumentation. The music was horribly unpleasant to me personally, and I had to end the song early, but for the time it was on, Tank was dancing, declaring his love for the song, and having disco balls and music notes appear in his eyes.

K-Pop: Psy's "Gangdam Style" Seemed to like it, but nothing too serious. Nothing vocal, just danced throughout. Nothing surprising. 

Although there was not much variety in his dancing or specific reactions, there was a clear order in his preference for the songs. Mostly due to his enthusiasm for certain tracks over others, which was apparent through more frequent dancing, more active movements, vocal praising of the song, and disco balls and music notes in his eyes.

Tank's Playlist, in order of preference:

1) Lupe Fiasco's "Streets on Fire"

2) Cannibal Corpse's "Hammer Smashed Face"

3) Muse's "The Uprising" 

4) Radiohead's "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"

5) Delta Heavy's "Demons"

6) Psy's "Gangdam Style"

7) Andy McKee's "Drifting"

The biggest surprise for me was the clear gap between his enjoyment of "Drifting" and "Streets on Fire". It was not a case of certain sections of the song, but rather each of the songs in their entirety. I hope to change Tank to a different personality later to further experiment with the same tracks.

-Adam

Activation and Blind Playing

1/30/13

This Wednesday my unactivated and unassuming Furby, Tank, was turned on during class. The activation was mildly anti-climactic; instead of seeing Tank come to life myself, he was unceremoniously roused in a long line of furbies. It was weird. I had spent more time than I'd like to admit looking forward to actually turning him on, but instead of being able to do it myself, I had to wait until all the furbies were activated and was unable to even distinguish him between the other orange-fured furbies. This annoyance quickly subsided, however, as I was treated to perhaps the most hilarious, and the most disturbing, sight I have ever witnessed in a classroom.

I give you 19 Furbies, all ready to be turned on and thrust directly into the mad world of The Great Furby Project. Shortly after receiving my newly-activated Tank, who I cannot identify in this picture, I was introduced to the key feature of the 2012 line of Furby: the changing personalities. I'm not sure what I did, but through some combination of feeding, petting, and tickling, my Furby started freaking out, announced it was changing, and closed its eyes with flashing lights. The result was what I have learned to call the "Cali Girl" Furby: the personality that never stops talking. From the box I knew this personality was just one of many.

2/3/2013

It's been five days since Tank (and Swagg) have been activated, and, sadly, they have more or less worn out their welcome. What was for the first few days a humorous venture into childlike discovery quickly dissolved into boredom, apathy, and occasionally a mechanism for annoying each other. Waking a sleeping Furby instills groans and complaints, and the more devious of us have taken to awakening Tank and Swagg at random intervals. The fact that they fall asleep, and in effect turn themselves off, with relative ease is a blessing.

We also found the Furbies did, in fact, have a rather limited vocabulary, and that changing their personalities was dishearteningly straight-forward. This is what I discovered:

Happy Furby: This is easily the most desirable of the furbies, as its random pronouncements and singing are the least disruptive. Obtaining this personality is immensely straight-forward: simply pet the Furby gently along its back, from its hair to its tail, for an extended period of time, and you can make any other kind of Furby become the Happy Furby. This Furby also responds well to tickling, petting, and generally anything you throw at it. Pulling its tail too much incites tears.

Evil Furby: At the opposite side of the spectrum we have the Evil Furby, who greets you with devilish, downturned eyes and an unpleasant chanting-like call. This Furby finds fault with much of what you do, and petting him or tickling him can easily prompt a "NO LIKE". Turning your Furby evil is as straightforward as turning it good; simply feed it non-stop. Furbies will periodically declare they are hungry, and you feed them by pushing their tongue inside their beak. However, if you keep doing it, they will vomit. If you feed your Furby non-stop it will turn evil, regardless of its previous persona.

Crazy Furby: The most disruptive of the Furby, this personality is characterized by mismatched eyes and a general absurd nature. It laughs at itself, farts, cracks jokes in furbish, and in general simply acts like a lunatic. He is activated by tugging on the tail non-stop, which bothers any of the other personalities. This is easily the least sought-after in our suite.

Cali Girl Furby: We don't fully understand this Furby. While the other personalities have easy avenues from which to access them, the Cali Girl's path has so far eluded us. This personality pops up every once in a while, but its appearance is always random and leaves us confused as to what prompted it. The Cali Girl sings pop songs, talks like a teenager, and gives off an air of attitude. 

Inter-Furby Play: As I am currently living with someone who is also taking the class, we tried to take advantage of this unique situation by having the furbies interact. Perhaps we are missing something, but so far it seems that the furbies simply rattle off their pre-set commands more frequently when they are around each other and never go to sleep. Needless to say we don't have them interact often; hopefully when more tools are available to us we will be able to interact with them further.

And that is all we know of the Furbies thus far. Perhaps I am viewing this through a narrow spectrum, but the 2012 Furby is much more limited than I thought it would be, given its 60 dollar price tag. I hope that there is more it can do with app interaction, but I am not holding my breath.  I am starting to suspect that this learning experience with the Furby will be much heavier on what I can do rather than what the Furby can do.

-Adam