Boxy: Responsive Toy Pet
Interact with Boxy and See What Happens!
Boxy is an introverted and timid box. It secretly hopes for some companions but shies away at new friends’ touches. When a stranger touches Boxy, it gets frightened, tries to make a fierce face and horns warning sounds. Actually, Boxy shows its tough side only to feel safe, it does want friends and hates to be left alone, – Boxy gets especially anxious when being left alone in the dark. Having a friend by its side – no touch, not too close, just sitting side by side – that’s all Boxy wants.
What’s Inside The Box?
Boxy comes with a light sensor on the top and an ultrasonic distance sensor on the side as input, and it has LED, buzzer, and servos as output. Finally, Boxy is covered with yarn to hide its components. With everything, Boxy could show four states given different environmental conditions.
4 States of Boxy
By default, Boxy peeks out with its big eyes (state 1), but flips them to the angry eyes and blares yellow lights when someone approaches it (state 2). If the person comes too close, or even touches Boxy, Boxy lights up red and starts blasting out noises (state 3).
However, if the ambient environment is too dark, regardless of being approached or not, Boxy hides its eyes and reveals the words that says, “I can’t see” (state 4).
Solo Project
2022/09
Instructor
Dr. Keith Evan Green
Actress in the video
Chien-Chun Liao
I built this box in the course Architectural Robotics, held by Cornell University Human Centered Design. This box is powered by Arduino Grove Board with the “Ultrasonic.h”, <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>, <Servo.h> libraries installed.