Inspiration
One of our team members has a robot and a fake retractable plastic knife.
What it does
Users interact with a web app interface that allows them to choose one of the developers as a "target." After the target is chosen, the robot scans for a face that matches the chosen developer's face. After a matching face is found, the user then instructs the robot to either attack or follow the developer.
How we built it
The front-end is built using React.js, HTML, CSS. Three extra packages were imported in order to provide models, an animated background, and useState to save variables. The back-end consists of Python with FlaskAPI in order to communicate with Siamese Neural Network model for face recognition, utilizing the concept of computer vision. Additional back-end technologies was Arduino to communicate with hardware, a physical robot with instructions that could be programmed.
Challenges we ran into
The computer vision neural network took a lot of effort to train, and it was not fully cooperative. The accuracy of it's face recognition was too variable and we did not have enough data or time to fully train it. There were issues in the hardware and networking required to connect the backend to the frontend. On the frontend side, with little experience in React, is was challenging to find the appropriate animations and packages and hooks to use for each UX.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Although there were many challenges, we came quite close to our goal. The neural network was working to a certain degree, the hardware was able to produce and send images, the UI/UX was responsive and reactive to user interactions. Despite all the technical challenges we experienced in the short time span, we are proud of all the features we were able to incorporate.
What we learned
Each of us learned about our respective roles. We learned about the process of computer vision, networking hardware and sending live video, animating and creating responsive interfaces, and core React features and methodologies.
What's next for AiM
As of right now, we are not too sure about the future of AiM. But all of us know we would love to get every proposed feature fully working. This was a very unique project idea to us and it will forever be remembered as a special experience.
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