Project Idea #1:

Hitchhiking Robot misses the sea

*Beeeeep* Did you hear something? You are standing at the corner of Kinross/Bolton street and… *Beeeeeep* What the heck is this? You look around: Cars, some teens on the way to school, wind - *Beeeeep* "Excuse me, hello?" You look down from where the sound seems to come from: A small weird box on wheels holding a small screen with comical eyes looks up to you: "Ehm… excuse me, I am from Germany and I have not been able to see the sea for quite a while." Is this little tiny duct-taped robot really talking to you? You rub your eyes while it continues in a human voice with an accent: "... and ehm… well…. I am trying to get to Princess Bay. Could you maybe help get over to ze ozza side of ze schtreet? Ze sidewalk is too high for my wheels…"

All over the world many people have been locked up in their homes for so long now. Physical distance used to be a thing for people in long distance relationships but for many people all over the world it has become second nature by now.
The hitchhiking robot is an interactive social experiment: The robot is trying to see the sea again. But he will take the form of a small, plasticy barely moving DIY robot, rolling alone through parts of the city, trying to get help from passers by on its path. Will it get trashed by bored teenagers or will it find that the kindness of strangers indeed carries it far?

Over the course of 2021 and in cooperation with local artists and hackers, I want to create different prototypes for the DIY robot hitchhiker and test them/it.

If you want to learn more about the project, check out the more general description of the project

First DIY robo prototype

The first test proto robot is ready.
I build an Arduino based first draft of bot inspired by a wonderful but a little aged DIY tutorial on instructables.com and published it in this gitlab repository.
Maybe somebody in New Zealand wants to try to build their own one? The code and very minimal building instructions are provided.

My goal is to get these instructions and the code to a place that it becomes relatively easy to assemble your own robot, just with a smartphone, one arduino, one wifi chip and off-the-shelf materials that are easily available.
In the current state I think this might already be a worthwhile weekend project.
Wanna play with me and the robot? Please feel free to get in touch!
I am at the moment looking for artists, tinkerers, game designers or anybody else in New Zealand who might be up to make some games, performance pieces and/or some tinker time with me.

If you want to learn more about the project, check out the more general description of the project