Mickey The Companion

Mickey Sleeping (Normal Mode)
Mickey Sleeping (Normal Mode)
Mickey Talking When talked to (part 1)
Mickey Talking When talked to (part 2)

MICKEY

Motivational Interactive Cheerleader who's Kinda adorable & can be Exercise buddy or Your tiny sidekick

Inspiration

Most people are lonely. There is a lack of a 24/7 companion being there whenever we need and phones just don't do the trick at times. To solve this, we imagined a cute robot to always be there. Whether you're in need of a cheerleader during exercise, a study timer, general questions, or just a random conversation, our little robot will be there for you.

What it does

1) Speech interaction. User can have conversations with the robot, ask the robot to make a joke, spill a random fact or generally have conversation with the robot.
2) Study Companion: Users can ask research questions to be answered. Users can also set timers and study environments.
3) The robot has an exercise feature, where once clicked, it follows the body movement of the user. For example if the user does jumping jacks, the robot does jumping jacks synchronised with the user and cheers on the way. This includes any type of upper body exercise.
4) With the robot, users can have a mini friend for Karoke. It dances along and pretend to hold a microphone while moving to any song.

How we built it

Using raspberry pi as the backbone the robot, controlling all the actuators and 3D printer to 3d print the body parts, we programmed and built a cute (low key among us looking) robot that can be set sitting in any desk. With added in machine learning for body tracking and speech recognition, the robot is able to synchronise with the user in front and also able to understand their conversation and reply with generative speech.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the main challenges were irregular dimensions of the 3d printed body parts and a short timeline to re-print. However as we melted and remodified with more accurate dimensions we were able to attach up our desired robot. Additionally another challenge was more technical towards the hardware components which required more power especially when connected to the motor. Conflicts with motor caused the raspberry pi system to repeatedly crash which in result affected the cloud transmission of data for the AI processing. However the solution was resolved with a electrical solution approach.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to quickly solve our errors as a team and adapt our product the most feasible but impressive solution.

What we learned

More about data transmission from one device to another device, Raspberry Pi's compatibility and limitations.

What's next for Mickey The Companion

Currently, Mickey is able to follow the upper body movements while the lower body is stationary. The next update, Mickey will be able to walk, stand, jump following the user and also having a conversation. Additionally, as Mickey currently displays cute face expressions as it talks, in the next update, there will be a touch sensor where users can tickle and interact more hands on with the robot.