(Documentary via MIT)
A robot designed to be sugary cute wanders about meeting people, recording their stories, and enters the documentary film making business with ease. Boxie, the bot, was designed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) Media Lab. Canned, prerecorded, questions and statements engage those on its journey. Alexander Reben, researcher and documentary maker at MIT, explained, "The idea was to create a robot that was interesting enough for people to engage with it and offer to help it, carrying it around and up and down stairs to show it things."
The "off-the-shelf" caterpillar-tracked chassis was covered in cardboard to give it a "non-threatening" look. Under the glaze of robot cuteness, sits an ATMega1280 (Yes, an Arduino), running C code at 16MHz (8-bit). The uC handles analog data from 4 accelerometers, and IR Distance Sensor, and Digital data from 2 buttons and a Passive Infrared sensor (PIR). The PIR sensor is used to detect the heat signature of a human standing near it, detecting motion by changes in heat levels. An ultrasonic distance sensor (XL-MaxSonar-EZo) is the main sensor for obstacle avoidance. An onboard camera records Boxie's talks with people along the way. A Wifi transceiver relays data from Boxie back to homebase, condition statements and video streaming. An audio controller and speaker lets the bot "talk to" those engaging it. The bot lasted around 6 hours on a single charge, depending on the amount of activity.
After the better part of a week, 50 interviews were collected and edited down to the above documentary. Reben about some of the interesting highlights of the documentary, "[Lack of tracking hardware, saved for development time] meant I'd have to go out and search for Boxie at the end of the day. Once I found it in the trash and another time an intern spotted a child trying to put it in its parents' car."
Boxie: "Can you take me to your favorite place? When we are there press the green button." (From the script)
Me: "Welcome to my car's trunk, you are coming home with me."
Cabe
