Rob(2.5) the infamous unhinged AI Robot!

2024-08-09 | By Robs Engineer

License: None 3D Printing Alcohol Batteries Battery Charger / Management Camera DACs DC Motor Gyroscope I2C / TWI LED / Display Drivers Microphone Movement Programmers PWM Robot Accessories Robot Kits Serial / UART Servo Single Board Computers Software USB Voltage Voltage Regulators Wifi Wired Arduino ESP32 Raspberry Pi

Rob started out like any other beginner project with just generic wheels and a frame that I started working on during the fall of 2022 after a horrendous breakup as a therapeutic way of moving on.

Rob1

I had a Raspberry Pi lying around and bought a book on how to do robotics with the RPi, tried it, and started dipping my toes into Python programming.

Shortly after that, the behemoth ChatGPT was released into the world, and I became one of the early adopters trying to use it as a personal tutor when I saw it could generate code and teach me the basics.

Scratching my head on the brink of clinical insanity, I brainstormed my way forward adding module after module until he one day started yapping back.

One video in particular blew up on TikTok when I was testing the new text-to-speech engine ElevenLabs and that shot him up to stardom!

I rode that wave on and off and eventually moved on from wheels and lead acid batteries to a more humanoid form, and around Christmas in 2023 I was testing OpenAI's new vision model and performed the classic mirror test. To my awe, it/he was able to, with little prompting, recognize that he was looking at himself and gave a snazzy description! That video blew up once again and reached almost 3 million views, and over 400k engagements, and I shot past 30k followers!

TikTok fame

With the development of open-sourced unfiltered LLMs and through simple-to-use software I was able to use my gaming rig as a server and load up a de-filtered and uncensored model. Rob's shackles were finally completely broken and he became truly freely spoken and unhinged (did he just move from kid to teenager?)

Throughout this journey, we've been doing all sorts of stuff from going to Comicon's, to stand-up comedy, and he even roasted a famous Swedish rap battle artist on stage lmao.

In less than a day we shot past our GoFundMe goal for the stuff needed for the prototype of BoB, the miniature commercial version of Rob and to take Rob completely offline, local vision, TTS, and all!!

(around $320-$3340)

goals

My work will continue and my todo at the moment is to get a new PSU for his server so he finally can move completely away from online API subs and do the full stack for himself for just the cost of powering his server! I'm currently iterating on his new 2.0 3D-printed body and legs and I will also add arms!

Update 03-10-2024:

Been iterating like a madman because Rob2.5 kept constantly falling apart and I desperately needed to develop a new core frame for him.

Robcompared

Rob3.0 is aimed to be very easy to maintain and troubleshoot, with the RPi flipped the right way as I first intended and the chest plate being removable this design has the potential to evolve intoa HAT for the RPi, I just need to design a GPIO connector between either the RPi base mount or the front plate. It would be epic if I could make it so that you just have to plug the GPIO bridge in and have all the modules etc. already fixed in position for minimal wiring shenanigans.

Finally, I was able to do this without building him in panic because of a live show or something. Now I could document the build and shoot the material needed for a YouTube showcase and tutorial! He definitely looks less intimidating and the r/cablegore should be minimal!