Avadhut Deshmukh has hacked an Arduino robot so that it will wheel around a functioning laptop and respond to commands given from an iPhone.
And that’s not all! When you can combine peripherals on the PC itself, the abilities of the semi-intelligent laptop wielding bot utilize the webcam to do amazing things.
We’ve all been there before: the sister, the office adversary in the office across from you, or (dare I say) the professor that will not stop harassing you (for no other reason than you’re awesome and they’re not), and yet no matter how hard you try to politely disrupt their day with a semi-frightening or annoying joke they just will not be ruffled.
Now take a laptop, hook it up to the Arduino board, set up Mr. Deshmukh’s brilliant robot brain waves, and watch as the newly intelligent bot learns.
The robot will approach the sibling/office ass/professor and make a note of their face.
And then . . . the bot will start following only them around! It will recognize their face and wheel after them! No matter how much they might try, it will be tough to ignore an open laptop robot driving after them wherever they turn!
But wait, there’s more! This bot can also learn colors to follow, detect fire (and run from it), and even drive itself around on autopilot adeptly avoiding walls.
If you do not have an iPhone, or iPod Touch to control this bot creation you can set it up so that it will run off of the controls on a Nintendo Wii remote!
