Robot Helper Design Challenge

ISSBOT by Michael
A little robot friend that does a lot of work.

Make it like a little human that you have to play with or it gets bored.
He uses solar power cells - there's lights inside the cabin, there's lights outside. He has an emergency battery in him.

I would like him to be about the same size as Sony SDR-3X which is 50cm high with legs.
He's shorter with his sticky tractor wheels or with just his flippers. He should weigh about 2kgs so he fits into the space station and he's not too heavy. He'll weigh 5 kgs with his legs on.

He has flippers so it can sort of swim around the ISS. It could use a little jet pack in space but it might set things on fire inside the ISS. Suckers so you can stick it in place and not bump into it
Wheels or legs click on instead of flipppers when you want to go onto a planet.

The wheels have suction treads like octopus arms. He can use his suction pads for inside the ISS instead of his flippers so he doesn't get in the way - he'll be on the floor so the astronauts can float over him.

eyes - two cameras with heat vision (infrared) 4 x zoom
He has robot seeing - he takes pictures of you and calculates if he's not going to bump into you.
Like Markiann's robot. He has a neck so his head can swivel 360 degrees.

I would like fingers that have muscle wires instead of motors. They are lighter and use less power . " Mondo-tronics’ Muscle Wires rode aboard the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner rover." There are 3 fingers and a thumb on each hand with an extendable tiny claw in the thumb to reach in where humans can't. He has touch sensors on his fingers.

voice activated, but only my voice so no other astronaut can tell it to tickle me. Just in case another country wants to borrow him he understands French, English, Chinese, Russian Japanese. He can communicate with you with his speakers or the screen on his stomach, and to you or other computerscreens in the space station by wireless (radio) if you are not in the same room.

To help with research and experiments - records or types out your notes when you talk to him, stopwatch, passes me tools while I'm fixing things. If you forget what you did he reminds you. He's got a book of instructions for if there's an emergency so you know what to do and the space station sends him a signal about what piece is broken and he helps you fix it. He's got the plans with labels of all the parts of the space station. While you are asleep he cleans the space station.

He also gets me food because I'm lazy!
reads me bedtime stories and plays chess but cheats when you are not looking - if you look away to get a drink; this is more fun and keeps you on your toes

Gosh it's got to have a big brain for all of this!
It should have a fast chip and lots of Flash memory.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/flash-memory2.htm (Our dog knows 8 words and she's smart for a dog. SDR-3X knows 20 and Michael wants his robot to be smarter than that.)

If he doesn't understand what you mean he will learn like a little kid does, there's a button that turns on 'learning' - you show him and tell him. But I don't think it's a good idea for him to learn by himself; he might learn the wrong thing. If he does there is a delete button.

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