Credit to:
Shuli Jiang, David Perry
October~December 2016

Motivation and Proposal

        In his Commentary on Aristotles Categories, Archytus writes, “Place is the first of all beings”, since everything that exists is in a place and cannot exist without a place. The aim of this project is to allow people to share spaces. We start by making a unique recording device that prompts people, via written text, to “Take Me Somewhere on the CMU campus” and auto-uploads the collected videos to Dropbox. This prompt is intended to inspire users to interact with the object. Their interaction and manipulation of the object will be recorded by the device and it will permanently affect what it records. Putting the object on campus, we successfully collected video data from several locations.

        Then we constructed a space to curate all the data we receive, via dropbox, from the recording device within Hunt library’s media lab. The space is to act as a portal, or a window into what the object has experienced, which allows users access to the entire database that the recording device has created. The presentation of the videos are inspired by the idea of “Camera Obscura”, which is the natural optical phenomenon that occurs when an image of a scene at the other side of a screen is projected through a small hole in that screen as a reversed and inverted image on a surface opposite to the opening. A “Camera Obscura” device is also the prototype of the modern camera. In a dark space, we projected down those videos that were masked with dotted effects onto a round screen. By adding the common elements in “Camera Obscura” — dots, projection and dark room, we aimed at giving people the sense of a true “Camera Obscura” that has the magic of connecting them to different places from a small space.

Technical Documentation

Materials:

1. Mobile video collection device. (raspberry pi + pi camera)
2. Projector.

Source Code:

https://github.com/11hifish/SpaceSharing.git

Datatium gives users rich information according to their context they are currently in. The author believes that the amount of information people have shapes their responsiveness. People will interact with the world and the others in a different way if they are provided with rich data around them.

See more at:

Datatium: material for contextually responsive design

RoboPet is a connected Robot for interacting with Pets remotely. It has a laser point on it and connects to a phone via Wifi. So people can control the motion of the robot to play with their pets even when they are not at home simply by their phone.

See more at:

RoboPet

Helmet is a multi-purpose home camera. It has laser that can play with pets. It senses and reports air quality at home. It allows users to capture certain moment and share with the others. Helmet connects home, family and friends in a new way.

Learn more at:
Helmet: Your eye, your playmate, and your friend

Credit to:
Shuli Jiang, Adriel Luo
September~October 2016

Project Demo

Motivation and Proposal

        We want to build an interesting human-interaction enabled robot but do it in a non-traditional way that only rewards people who are watching it patiently and who have invested time and energy doing so.

        Our idea developed from a motionless rock that does nothing when people can see it but moves when no one notices it (i.e. in the dark). However, a rock, a lifeless object, is somewhat tedious. Therefore, we came up with our second model, an Anglerfish. Like the rock, an Anglerfish lives and moves in a dark environment. With a model based on a living creature, we can explore more of the robot’s behavior and outlook. But Anglerfish often gives people the impression of ferocity, which we don’t want our robots to have. We want a robot that lives and sings blithely in the darkness and is kind of coward sometimes. So we developed our third and final model—-a Reaper Fish, an imaginary fish. The robot interacts with people through a light sensor and a distance sensor. The Reaper Fish reacts to obstacles and light through the distance sensor and the light sensor respectively.

Context

        A Reaper Fish is a famous creature living in the deepest, darkest parts of the sea. It sweeps the sea floor to harvest parts from dead fish for food and growth. When it finds a part, it assimilates that part into itself. Over time, the new part becomes a part of the Reaper Fish. Not only does the Reaper Fish consume the dead parts from other fish for nutrition, but it also preserves the fresh organs and makes them functional again. It learns how to make use of the functional organs and therefore acquires new abilities from the dead fish.

        A Reaper Fish adapts itself to a totally dark environment by two red luminescent eyes that help it communicate with the other Reaper Fish, and a special mouth that receives and sends ultrasonic waves. Sound reflects a Reaper Fish’s mood. When it is happy, it makes sweet tunes. When it is in danger, it screams and its tail will become lightened. Because it lives in the dark, light is lethal to the Reaper Fish. When a Reaper Fish senses light, it reacts violently to light, then freezing and becoming motionless, like turning to stone.

Reaper Fish Vertical View

Reaper Fish Front View

Technical Documentation

Materials:

Platform:

Pololu 3pi robot development kit in Arduino IDE

Hardwares:

Pololu 3pi Robot x1, small breadboard x1, 2.2v red LED x2, 2.2v white LED x1, 3k-ohm resistor x1

Sensors: light sensor x1, distance sensor x2 (one for decoration only and one for actual purpose), motion sensor x1(for decoration), ultrasonic sensor x1(for decoration)

Laser Cut Board x2

Circuit Design:

Source Code:

https://github.com/11hifish/ReaperFish.git

Close Look of the inside:

Reaper Fish Double Shell: The bottom transparent shell is to hold the breadboard and the outer dark shell serves as the actual outlook of the Reaper Fish

Close Look

Individual Contribution

Shuli Jiang: Programming, Robot’s behavior development, Video Narration, Documentation.
 
Adriel Luo: Laser cutting, Distance sensor incorporation, Robot’s music development, Video edition.

Related Work

Knowbotics Research