I love robots.  My daughter, however, is not a big fan. 

Almost 15 years ago I made a robot pet that I named "Cybert".  Every morning Cybert would undock from his charger, navigate into the master bedroom and then deliver a random "wake up" greeting. After making sure my wife and I were awake he would read us the current news headlines, tell us the local weather, and update us on our stock portfolio, before rolling back down the hallway to wake our daughter.  

After knocking on our daughter's door three times (by bumping into it), Cybert would back up and wait for the door to open.  If it didn't open within 5 minutes he would loop back and knock again. When Cybert detected the door opening he would say, "Good morning! It's a beautiful day!" Then he would navigate back into the spare bedroom and re-dock with his charger.

Here's an early video of this "alarm clock" behavior:

The video was shot before I completed the door knocking stuff, and a few weeks later I changed to a voice with more personality. I also made Cybert move faster.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to update the video...

My daughter did NOT like to get out of bed in the morning so she quickly grew to DESPISE my little creation. Over dinner one night I asked, "Hey!  Isn't it pretty cool that you have your own robot to wake you up in the morning?"  She replied, "No! How would YOU like it if some robot rolled down the hall and started banging into your bedroom door and -- " At that point she must have seen the delighted smile growing on my face.  "-- Oh you WOULD like it!!!"  

She was NOT amused at the time, but we laugh about it now. 

It probably didn't help that the first morning Cybert woke her up he yelled at her! It's kind of a funny (albeit "geeky" story). 

I was trying to build a robot "pet" so I devised a way to give Cybert 9 different "moods":

The robot would generally wake up every day somewhere in the "Normal" box, but then his mood would change based on his "Security" (y axis) and his "Happiness" (x axis), which were constantly being updated via sensor readings. So if Cybert was in a dark room for an extended period of time his SECURITY variable would decrease, moving him toward the Afraid box. Bumping into something would cause his HAPPINESS to go down, moving him toward the Upset box.

Cybert had hundreds of different things he could say, and I wrote 9 different variations for each comment, one for each mood.  So if his battery was running low and he was feeling Playful Cybert might say, "Robot needs food badly! Ha Ha!", but if he was feeling Afraid he would likely comment, "Oh no, my battery is running down!"

I was still working on the Mood Matrix code when I realized that Cybert could wake us up every morning, so I switched gears and began implementing the new Alarm Clock behavior. On the morning of the first test run I got up early and it was pretty exciting to hear the robot come rolling down the hallway. He came into our bedroom right on time, woke us up with a friendly greeting and then he read the news, weather, etc. Everything was working great!

Cybert then asked, "Would you like me to wake up Autumn?" I said, "Yes", and off he went. He knocked on Autumn's door three times and pleasantly told her it was time to get up, then he backed up and waited. As I expected, her door didn't open immediately, so 5 minutes later Cybert knocked again. Only this time I heard him say, in a deep menacing voice, "GET OUT OF BED, I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU AGAIN, YOUNG LADY!!!"

WTF???

It took me awhile to figure out what had happened. Cybert "woke up" in a Normal mood, but while he was downloading the news, weather, and our stock info he was sitting in a dark room, causing his SECURITY to go down. When he bumped into Autumn's door (to knock) it caused his HAPPINESS variable to go down, which bumped his mood into the Angry box. Everything was working as designed, but his behavior surprised me! 

In a weird kind of way it was almost an emergent behavior! In any event, that was the day my robot yelled at my daughter.  

I've told this story many times over the years, and I suspect that some folks don't believe it really happened. But I swear it's true.

My first industry contact was a programmer named Troy Lyndon. We were pretty good friends for many years so I wasn't surprised when he invited my wife and I to dinner so we could meet his new girlfriend.

I called his apartment to finalize our dinner plans and I apparently caught him in the middle of an argument with his roommate. I can only guess that the phone got knocked off its base before it had a chance to ring, because no one picked it up but I could hear the ENTIRE fight.

Troy was complaining that the rent check was late, his roommate was complaining that Troy owed him money for the phone bill. Then the subject changed to dirty dishes and laundry all over the floor. They were really screaming at each other and almost coming to blows.

Someone stormed off to a different room and then I heard someone else hang up the phone.

I'm not sure what gave me the idea, but an evil plan began to form in my mind.  I waited a few minutes and called Troy back. He picked up the phone and the conversation went like this: (did I mention that I minored in Theater?)

That night at dinner it was REALLY hard for me to keep a straight face, but our conversation was dominated by talk about ESP, paranormal phenomenon and the untapped potential of the human brain. Troy kept saying, "I never believed in this stuff before, but how else can you explain it?" He was so excited.

I feel kind of guilty that I never told him the truth.

<sigh>

I'm often asked about my favorite game of all time. If I had to single out just one title my choice would probably be: M.U.L.E.  This is the game that convinced my father that I had picked a viable career path. 

Dad always thought games were a big waste of time and he strongly urged me to find something else to get excited about.  During my senior year at Pepperdine my folks visited from Colorado. It was Christmastime and that year my wife gave me a copy of M.U.L.E.  After a little badgering Mom and Dad said they would try it and the four of us sat on the couch and played that game for HOURS.  Mom wasn't very good with a controller so she always had trouble getting her mule back into the pub.  With the timer ticking down she'd miss on the left, then on the right, all the while shouting "Ooh", "Oooh", "OOOH!" as the rest of us laughed til tears ran down our cheeks. 

After that visit Dad never said another bad thing about games, and now he and my Mom play them all the time.  In fact, "Fairway Solitaire" is one of their favorite titles!

One very hot summer day, when our daughter was probably 6 or 7 years old, we opened all the windows in the house and fired up "Bomberman" for a few multiplayer games. As there were only three of us playing, the computer controlled the black bomberman... And he was winning many of our games.

Frustrated, we formed a new strategy: get rid of the computer player first. We had a blast with this little game-within-a-game until I suddenly realized, an hour or so later, that our windows were wide open, there were neighbors out in their yards and walking by, and our precious baby girl had been repeatedly screaming at the top of her lungs, "KILL THE BLACK GUY!  KILL THE BLACK GUY!"

Like many games from that era, especially RPGs, you couldn't just save any time or place you wanted. After killing a bunch of monsters and gathering a backpack full of loot, players were required to backtrack through the dungeon so they could save their progress and loot in the tavern.

It was a Saturday, about lunchtime.  My wife had been playing Apshai all morning and she was on an epic run.  I've never seen so much loot and I told her (nay, begged her) to leave the dungeon and save her progress. She kept telling me, "No, I'm good. I can do this."

I couldn't watch anymore, so I ran down to the store to pick up some lunch. When I got back 30 or so minutes later she was STILL in the dungeon.

"Look what I got in the last room!!!"  (I don't remember the item, but I do remember that it was incredible.)  Then she uttered the now infamous, "I'm going to do just ONE more room, and then I'm going to save."

I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  Giant spiders... and a dragon.  She begged the game gods, she pleaded with them, tears running down her cheeks as she tried to run away.  "No, don't kill me!!  Please!  No!  You can't.  NOOOOooooooo!"

She still plays RPGs, but I think that was her last visit to the "Temple of Apshai".