Cody

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  Halfway through the first Cody project

Inspiration

I have been to many hackathons where I've felt very anxious and lonely. The idea of a robotic companion seemed like something that would've made my prior hackathons a much more pleasant experience.

What it does

It's meant to serve as both a friendly presence and as a stimmy for people with emotional problems and autism, which I personally deal with. It's main function is a chance based game where the "mouth" of the companion lights up a random bulb until all the bulbs are lit up. Pressing both buttons on the board and seeing the lights light up is therapeutic. It also blinks in a natural manner to seem friendly.

How I built it

Me and my team used the Arduino board and IDE (which utilizes C++ to program the board). We hooked up the Arduino to an electronic board to light up individual LEDs and control Cody via 2 buttons (to give users a feeling of "hands").

Challenges I ran into

Beside me, my team is made up of a first and second year and none of us have worked with microcontrollers before. This was our first hardware project.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Seeing a physical manifestation of my work as well as working on a project that'll help people facing similar difficulties as me. I really like Cody and want to improve him with each new version.

What I learned

How electronic components work, how to program for Arduino, and the unique challenges that come with hardware.

What's next for Cody, your programming buddy

I'd like to keep working on Cody until I can eventually make a robotic body for him to make him more calming. I would also like to give him more capabilities like "talking" and the ability to play more games.

Built With

• arduino
• c++