Notes about Sofian's classes

When Sofian came to visit us for three classes, we first spent two classes learning how to use his object-oriented Arduino language called Plaquette. It worked very similarly to processing, so it was an overall enjoyable process to use. We were assigned to create an interactive LED experience that simulated a particular emotion. The emotion my group was assigned was "Horny". I wouldn't really define that as an emotion, more of a physical state, however, we pursued. A member of our group went above and beyond, so I quickly discarded my button and flash project. In the end, our group had a smiling face that could simulate all sorts of emotions. We used the ultrasonic sensor in creating an interactive experience. If one moved closer to the face, the face would smirk and wink. If you were too far, the face would frown.

After that, we had a discussion about the pros and cons of replicating emotion through technology. On the one hand, these sorts of tools could be very helpful for comforting lonely people but might make us forget about the real things we need to care for, such as our pets and family. We also discussed some of the physical challenges when replicating human likeness. We discussed the uncanny valley, which is the concept that at some point between human like-ness and unlike-ness, there is this valley where if something is too close to human but not quite so, people will be less likely to attach to the object. Although some humans would bond with anything, like toys or roombas.

The concept of imitating pets is exciting to me. One example of a friendly AI pet is Vector by Anki. It is a very cute robot pet that also will be able to connect to smart home technologies, answer questions, and be free to code by anyone so anyone can come up with cute programs for him to do. He works because of his expressive eyes. Eye contact and eye expression are very important for human bonds, and so the design team for him worked very hard on that.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy2Z2TWAt6A

My button flash project:

Code
#include <Plaquette.h>

SquareOsc oscillator(1.0);

DigitalOut led1(3);
DigitalOut led2(4);

DigitalIn button(2);

StreamOut serial(Serial);

void begin() {
}

void step() {
1 >> led1;

if (!button)
  oscillator.period(.1);
 else
  oscillator.period(0);

  oscillator >> led2;

  oscillator >> serial;

}

Video:




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