“Hello World” - CompBot

Compliment Bot

Greetings from the newest member of the JUMP team - the Compliment Bot. CompBot is our professional greeter for the fourth floor elevator vestibule, and you are sure to continue your journey through the building with a smile on your face after hearing one of the bot’s quirky and occasionally backhanded compliments. CompBot doesn’t appreciate greedy visitors though, so make sure to give it a chance to reset before expecting another compliment.

CompBot has a brain and body just like you and I, allowing it to recognize when someone new has entered the elevator area, light up and compliment them. You will hear a bell ring and see CompBot’s head flash and come alive with a flowing rainbow animation. CompBot’s head is an acrylic cube that rises out of the white plinth. The cube is made by layering numerous sheets of acrylic together. Each pane of acrylic was laser etched with slices of a sphere and then arranged in order. The etched lines disrupt the relative transparency of the acrylic allowing the form of the sphere to appear floating within the solid acrylic block. Once we added some lighting to the base of the cube, the look is truly elevated. Due to acrylics material and refractive properties light and color stay trapped inside each pane. By programing a lighting sequence on a LED panel, we can achieve an animated look that gives character and energy to CompBot.

Where as our brains operate on a chemical electrical basis, CompBot’s is fully electric and run with the aid of a sensor and a couple Arduino micro controllers. A microwave sensor allows CompBot to recognize when someone is near by, triggered by the presence of a new object or person. This sends a signal to turn CompBot on and access one of over a hundred audio files to compliment the visitor. Simultaneously CompBot’s brain triggers a lighting sequence which will light up CompBot’s head. CompBots remarks come from a whole bunch of compliments recorded by JUMP team members saying nice things to each other. To declare the compliment loudly and proudly we added a pair of speakers to its body that can amplify CompBot’s words to the masses. If you look at CompBot’s internals, you can see it has wires going between its different parts, controlling the sensing, processing, speaking and lighting. CompBot has more room in its body, for possible expansions, so if you have a good idea for CompBot, make sure to let a team member know.

Check out the GitHub to learn more about how CompBot thinks and acts!