Spud

Spud is a small robot personal assistant/space manager that sits on the user's shoulder. It uses its face expressions and body language to convey its feelings and its sassy personality..

Modes

Depending on the mood of the user, Spud can switch between two modes: distancing others and befriending others. This helps the users in two different types of awkward and embarrassing situations like rejecting someone or trying to befriend them.

Testing

1. The first testing was done to find the best appearance of Spud. Participants were asked to choose their favorite sketch of Spud and give their opinion. The final sketch of Spud:
2. The second testing was done to find the suitable body language for different emotions. A stuffed toy was used as a model for the participants to position its arms, head and eyebrows to show different emotions.

Form

A simple prototype was built with cardboard to think about the look and the actual size of Spud and positioning of its technical parts inside.

I realized that Spud would be too small to hide all the parts inside so a bigger prototype will be built to showcase the functionality while a smaller prototype will be built to display the look and feel of Spud.

Work to be done

I will start working on the movement of the eyebrows, head and arms with servos. Research has to also be done to think about using cameras and facial recognition instead of the ultrasonic sensor.