The Modern Relationship: "EmotiBots"
The idea of human emotion being stimulated by machines is very interesting. People become attached to various devices and feel varying degrees of emotional security about certain technology. What is the relationship between emotion and machines? What emotions could machines elicit from users? What emotions states could be illustrated through machines? What emotions would normally result from certain actions or situations?
We thought about creating Bots that illustrated relationship dynamics based on proximity. One Bot could read the proximity of the other Bot and produce feedback. We also thought the feedback response produced from each Bot would in turn elicit a response from a human observer.
The first “emotional machine” that came to mind for us was Tickle Me Elmo. The enormous popularity of this toy could be attributed to its disarming emotional quality. The human does something and the Bot responds with positive feedback. It laughs and vibrates when you tickle it. They want to tickle it again to get that fun response again.
What if we took this idea to a more adult relationship level. We thought about creating two Bots who are involved in a perpetual relationship cycle in which the human user plays an intimate part.
PSEUDOCODE
The Bots are in one of two states: together or apart.
In either state, the bots are unhappy and ask the user to change the situation.
When apart: Feedback indicates the Bot is lonely and needs the other
When brought together: Feedback indicates satisfaction
When together too long: Feedback indicates aggressive dissatisfaction
SENSORS
What would these Bots react to? Basically we need a sensor that can detect “together or apart.” Sensors we are investigating include Xbee sensor that could sense the relative position of the other Xbee sensor and produce a response.
FEEDBACK
What would the feedback be for the human user?
FEEDBACK: LIGHT
When the Bots are together or apart, the feedback could be simply color (blue for “lonely” changing to white for “satisfaction” to red for “dissatisfaction”). These could be achieved by relay with string lights or through LEDs.
FEEDBACK: MOVEMENT
The feedback could also include movement. Rocking for “lonely” still for “satisfaction” and vibrating for “dissatisfaction.” This could be achieved with a small pager vibrator motor or stepper motors.
FEEDBACK: SOUND
The feedback could also be sound. We could indicate sobbing or sad music for “lonely” changing to giggling or upbeat music for “satisfaction” to growling or dramatic music for “dissatisfaction.” We could also simply have these bots talk about their state explicitly and literally ask the user to change the situation. We could achieve this feedback by hacking an MP3 player or several players to produce different tracks. (Small speakers etc.)
ATTRACTION
In order for this to work, the Bots will have to be sturdy, easy to pick up and battery powered. They’ll also have to look cute enough (or at least interesting enough) for a human user to start interacting with them.
CREATING THE PERFECT PAIR
Eugene and I wanted to create a pair that would need each other and also have that endless cycle of magnetism: I miss you. I’m happy to be with you. You’re pissing me off!
The list of items we needed to create this pair were:
THE INFRAREDS
We needed to create a system that would allow the pair to recognize each other and react quickly. IR Communication would allow each unit to be programmed to only react to the other unit’s frequency. We settled on using an IR communication transmitter (TX IRHS) and its corresponding detector (TSOP 7000). We ordered two of each since each unit would have to send and receive signals for presence and detection. Of course the parts arrived late because of a Thanksgiving Day food coma.
THE MP3S
Eugene successfully hacked a cheap (and we’re talking $15 here) MP3 player by everybody’s favorite company: Coby. We soldered wires onto the existing terminals to turn the unit on and change tracks. A happy start.
THE EARS
We wanted users to hear and see the emotional state of these bots, so creating sound and movement was needed. We decided to go with internal speakers with some assistance from either an amplification chip or a battery back up. We lucked out when we found a pair of speakers that functioned well with no batteries (again, thank you Coby). They had heavy magnets, which offset the weight consideration for battery-backed speakers.
THE MOVEMENT
At first we had the idea to make the units vibrate with a small cell phone vibrator module. But given the sound output that was part of this movement, we thought it would be lost in the sounds of crying, laughing, fighting. Eugene felt very strongly that we should investigate building a gear system to help the units “jump” or at least hop. I was pretty sure I could not build something at this level of engineering by myself that could support and move all that weight. I started to look for ready-made jumping things. After touring the holiday-swarmed stores of downtown, I finally visited the Mega Church of Latter Day Santa Clauses: The Toy R Us at Times Square.
TOYS
If you have ever thought about the virtues of a vasectomy, this is a great place to visit. Kids and their over-indulgent parents were everywhere. Toys of every persuasion, from rock star guitars and man-eating dinosaurs to gun-toting robots, this place has every personality covered in spades. As I ran to the infant department to escape, I discovered the answer to my problem for gear movement: the very idea that started our quest… Elmo.
Chicken Dance Elmo jumps and spins his head. And he’s cute. And he sings. Which made it all the easier to hack his little singing self into robot parts.
THE BODY
We decided in creating the bodies of these Bots, we would go for less cute and more robot-ish. The feet would provide direction for pointing the Bots to be “together” and the heads would have little or no trademark eyes or “faces” for personality giveaway.
The sounds and the movements would convey the emotional states. We made some preliminary drawings and settled on a box-like shape. And given the state of repair most of our shop equipment was in, we decided to go for a ready-made Kleenex box cover.
KLEENEX
Let me just say, the plethora of choices for this item is overwhelming. People really hate looking at their Kleenex boxes. So much so that they are willing to spend upwards of $40 to cover it nicely. We settled on some tasteful wood from Crate and Barrel.
THE BOT SHOP
We started to get the body together, assembling the various parts to create our FrankenMuppet. We needed 4 reed relays to engage both the MP3 player and the gear mechanism in both bots. Those worked fin, but were hard to fit on our tighter-than-we-planned breadboard. Everything had to fit in a Kleenex box AND function well moving up and down. We decided to affix all parts to the box instead of the feet unit. We also devised a board for assembling the wiring outside the cassis and inserting the whole thing inside once we got it working. Longer wires were needed after all.
BLOWN AWAY
Two nights before presentation, we realized we had blown our IR Communication chip (the TX). Having no backup, we bummed out but decided to go with IR detection (since emitters and transmitters were readily available at Radio Shack. That same night, Eugene almost lost an eye when the IR transmitter we were testing exploded on us. Thankfully I was taking a camera shot to see if the signal IR light was blinking. Eugene had moved just far enough away to avoid the blast. Maybe we should work with a lower voltage, huh?
Our IR Communication Setup
Then, Our IR Detection Setup
And the Result on Presentation Day
FINAL STRETCH
We stayed up past 3:00am for two nights in a row to get these bots emoting with each other. In the final hours before presentation our tests were not working well. Both units were sending IR signals but were not detecting each other. We were desperate to make each Bot’s signal detectable by the other. Late for our presentation, we decided to show how the systems worked and discuss our frustrations with IR detection and communication.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE: AWESOME
The overall result of all this effort was great even if its technological success was mixed. We discovered quite a few things about the idea. People all loved the concept. The personification of relationships and the sound and movement feedback were all well received. We also discovered that Eugene and I work well together, both creatively and productively. It was fun deciding which tasks were worth pursuing and which of our directions supported the big idea.
We will return this project to finish using IR Communication. We had big success with the TX chip it (until we fried it). That technology made better sense with the concept, anyway. Each person in a relationship recognizes something unique in the other. Even if the relationship doesn’t work out in the end.