Dreaming Objects

Grand Prize

We are so honoured to have won the MIT HARDMODE Grand Prize of $50K backed by the e14 fund to further the idea.

Inspiration

Household devices today are mostly single-purpose, static, and frankly boring. Advances in AI are enabling physical devices to perceive context, adapt behavior, and coordinate actions. This creates an opportunity to rethink how intelligence can be embedded into the everyday objects around us.

Current Applications of AI in Devices:

Humanoid / general-purpose robots: Highly flexible but technically complex and socially unnatural in homes.

Smart home / IoT systems: Practical and widely used, but rigid, relying on predefined rules that struggle with ambiguity and changing user needs.

Our Solution Our team wanted to introduce a middle-ground approach and embed AI to bring household items to life, like in Beauty in the Beast. We envisioned a world where objects can interact with the physical world, empathize based on context, express themselves, and collaborate together to help the user thrive. Instead of one central robot or fixed automations, intelligence is spread throughout a system of devices.

How we built it

Our project has 4 objects

1. Lamp - moves in an animated, almost-cartoon way and changes light brightness/colour

2. Radio - switches channels to play music and talk to you

3. Mirror - displays generated images and can respond to things in its line of sight

4. Basket - move/push, like an RC car (it can push things around, bring items to you)

The project features a dashboard that shows the layout of the room, with each of the items and any people there may be. The dashboard displays each of the commands and actions sent between the objects, showing how they communicate to one another based on context.

Built With

• claude
• power-of-friendship