Proposal: Our group wants to create two wireless feedback devices that spill ink onto the user’s hand based on pulse spikes from the other user’s device. The premise is to create a device that allows both users to experience intense emotion in unison, for the purpose of forced cooperation due to both users experiencing discomfort from external stressors to one user.

Photos

Abstract

The Bully Bot is an autonomous robot that recognizes and charges at the color red until it gores, or until it and idles in pseudo-random walking paths.

Why We Did This

Our goal was to create action from a robot in such a way that it would respond assertively to a specific input it “doesn’t like.” For conveyance, we selected the common misconceptual action of bulls charging at the color red. This idea would allow our robot to respond normally to some users, but also to respond negatively towards a select few.

Final Thoughts

If we were to have a next iteration, we would focus on making the bot more toy-like. Perhaps with some user customization settings, and a softer, more expressive exterior (besides the contrasting super-sharp horns). In critique, the bull motif presented some unwanted symbolic associations and expectations that we were not considering implementing, and so a prospective future iteration would most likely move away from the bull profile, as it is intrinsic with politicized themes such as animal cruelty vs. tradition, ala the modern day interpretations of bull fights.

Technical Notes

The Bully Bot consists of a laser cut hardboard exterior with mounted Arduino Uno, CMUcam5 “Pixy” Camera, two gear head stepper motors driven by a DRV8833 chip, and two 9V batteries.

Video

Photos

Github Code

https://github.com/kaandog/Bull

Abstract

The Bully Bot is an autonomous robot that recognizes and charges at the color red.

Why We Did This

Our goal was to create action from a robot in such a way that it would respond assertively to a specific input it “doesn’t like.” For conveyance, we selected the common misconceptual action of bulls charging at the color red. This idea would allow our robot to respond normally to some users, but also to respond negatively towards a select few.

Moving Forward

For our next iteration, we would like to flesh out the Bully Bot’s ambient, unstimulated behavior and increase the “readability” of its form. By making it look and act more like an animal when it is not taking in red input, it will be more obvious to any people attempting to interact with it what is happening when it does respond. Our goal is to be able to play with it with a miniature red capote while it attempts to gore you with tiny little horns, as real fighting bulls are to do.

Technical Notes

The Bully Bot consists of a laser cut hardboard exterior with mounted Arduino Uno, CMUcam5 “Pixy” Camera, two gear head stepper motors driven by a DRV8833 chip, and two 9V batteries.

Video

Photos

Github Code

https://github.com/kaandog/Bull

Upon completion of the Wearable Turn Signal bike gloves (http://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/physcomp/f14/16-223/1a-basic-circuits-project-wearable-turn-signals/), we came to the conclusion that there were many areas in which our design could be optimized, namely in the area of versatility, visibility, and performance.

With regards to versatility, we identified that perhaps cyclists could own and use multiple pairs of bicycle gloves, so we concluded our design could be improved by mounting the system onto a more flexible fabric mount in order to feasibly fit over existing bicycle gloves. In this manner, cyclists would not have to give up existing bicycle gloves and they can instead be used as an extra accessory. In fact, The fabric itself can be worn as a glove in it’s prototype form, but in a future iteration we’d like to explore a more minimal, permanent casing.

In terms of visibility, on this iteration we elected to use NeoPixel strips that were not only much brighter than strips we used the first time around, but also contained individual drivers for each LED in the strip which we utilized to add animation to our signal lights. The animated arrows provide more immediate information to people looking at the cyclist as they help provide context for what the lights on the cyclist’s glove left hand symbolize.

In the context of performance, we improved upon our first iteration by replacing our rudimentary analog sensor with an accelerometer. When we first started testing, we figured that x, y and z axis measurements would be sufficient to determine the position of the glove and therefore which sensor to activate, but when we started actual trials we found that accelerating and decelerating effected the ranges in which the glove would change the correct output signal ranges significantly. We had to adjust ranges in order to compensate. The current iteration of the glove is a huge leap over our analog tilt switch iteration as a result; it is unaffected by elements such as wind and is way less prone to spontaneous failure.

Video

Process