personality by blinking and smiling. Disadvantages common to the Verbot were that it was quite noisy, reprogramming was necessary every time the robot was powered up again, and as with all of the Omnibot series its white plastic body would turn yellow if left in the sun. The Verbot was actually quite complex, utilizing a single motor for all its movements and an intricate set of gears for picking up objects. Programming Verbot was accomplished by pushing one of the buttons on its front panel and holding it down while the corresponding action was spoken into the remote control's microphone and then releasing the button. As with most Omnibots, losing the remote meant the robot could not be used to full capacity, but some hobbyists have modified cheap 1980s walkie-talkies for inputting voice commands. Omnibots today In recent times, many hobbyists have turned to hacking, tweaking and improving their Omnibots. Commonly added features are IR Sensors, video cameras, speech recognition chips, stronger motors, microcontrollers, sonars and other advanced enhancements that would not have been possible in the 80s. In the early 2000s, a gutted Omnibot was used as part of a contestant on the US television show Battlebots. The robot, named Dr. Inferno Jr. (an updated version of another combat robot that used a gutted Omnibot) won several awards in the competition's "Lightweight Division". The Omnibot on top of the drivetrain had no dome on top, and its arms were replaced with twin saws. An Omnibot 2000 was a recurring character on How I Met Your Mother. The Robot is seen in flashbacks to Robin Scherbatsky's teen years in Canada, where it was her consistent sidekick, appearing on her TV series Space Teens and her three music videos. The Robot inexplicitly appears in the "present day" settings, dancing next to Robin when she sings "The Beaver Song" at the Hoser Hut and (in a deleted scene) "Let's Go to the Mall" at her own wedding reception. i-SOBOT In 2006, shortly after the merger of Tomy and Takara, the company first unveiled a prototype for a new Omnibot, initially called "Omnibot 2007: i-SOBOT" but which has since been officially named, "Omnibot 17μ: i-SOBOT." ("μ" is the Greek letter "mu" symbolizing micron, referring to the specs of the servo motors) in Japan and simply "i-SOBOT" in the U.S. market. i-SOBOT was scheduled to go on sale in Japan in October 2007 (Japanese