PI ZERO

Projects
SHOWCASE
KRIS TEMMERMAN
A freelance developer who creates
interactive displays for museums
and advertising agencies. He’s
building a robot in his spare time.
neuroproductions.be
BALANCE
BOT
The robot will display
an expression on the
7˝ screen once a face
is detected
A sociable, balancing robot built
with a Raspberry Pi to power it.
How tricky is balancing a robot
via code, though?
Quick
Facts
> The robot has
currently taken
20 days to build
> Its reactions
to detected
people still
need work
> The screen
displays faces
when detecting
people
> Arms are
planned for
the robot
> It uses a Pi
camera for
the face
recognition
T
here’s a reason a lot of
robots don’t use two
wheels or two legs: very
simply, it’s difficult for them
to balance. It’s much easier
and sturdier to be on three (or
more) wheels or four (or more)
legs; generally, just having a low
centre of gravity is a good thing.
For two wheels in particular, you
need some way of maintaining
balance. Usually, this task is left
up to humans; as Kris Temmerman
shows us, though, a good bit
of coding and construction can
accomplish the same thing.
“The idea came after
seeing some social
robots, like Nao and
Pepper,” Kris tells us.
“Technologically they’re
great, but I think they are
also kind of boring. Too polite,
too cute. I wanted to see if I can
make a social robot with a little bit
more character.”
The robot is self-balancing so
that it can achieve a similar look
to these personal assistant robots,
and hopefully look a little less weird
than the robot from Rocky IV in the
As more weight is added
up top, more balance is
required near the wheels,
hence these stabilisers
The whole thing is wireless
and will eventually have a
higher level of autonomy
than it does currently
40 February 2016
raspberrypi.org/magpi