Slide 1

The Neck, by Graham Galts

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My project, The Neck is a robot that tries to escape humans when they attempt to capture it. However, if they do succeed in grabbing it, the robot instantly dies, and may invoke the emotions of fear and pity. 

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My first idea was to have a bottle shaped object that would shake until it fell dead butthat seemed unrealistic, and did not give the appearences of a human.

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My next idea was a spider robot that would crawl away from you but this robot was hard to grab and would be way too complicated. Also it had no way to struggle against you except to crawl forward.

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I then explored elongated neck ideas but these were hard to make and not very easy to grab as well, but they did allow me to put in the idea of back legs that would hit you, but otherwise do nothing.

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I then built a neck prototype that had beams that would work as a robot, but the math behind them was really complicated and would take me much longer than I wanted to make.

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Then I started working on ideas that would have a grabbable part at the top but also would allow sufficient space for mechanics on the bottom.

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This was my first prototype but I accidentaly made the piece at the front and the back to big so I had to redo it, and there were no holes for anything.

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This was a diagram of what I wished to do with the legs. The peg at the back connected to the end of the triangle rotates and spins the entire robot.

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This was a prototype of the legs. The main problem I ran into was that the screw on the last peg kept running into the bar, so I doubled the piece and glued them together and then base kept having screw bottoms running into them.

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This was my second cardboard prototype which all fit together, except I kindof forgot to add a hole for the back legs.

Slide 13

This slide shows my 2 completed cardboard Klann legs which worked well in cardboard and spun freely.

We are making a robot that mimics human characteristics within an interaction, especially when reacting to abuse. The device is supposed to trick the people who have it, that it has some sort of consciousness and for them to create an emotional attachment to it. The robot will also act like a human and respond to a certain type of abuse in a way that people would. The idea for the mediator came to me the second the topic was proposed and I had the vision for something that I thought could be special. I immediately began to formulate an entire plan and vision for the project, with a dream for everything this could do. I not only wanted it to react to abuse and be cool, but also help people and benefit others in a way I believe in significantly. The entire thesis was for the mediator to regulate a fight, reacting when the volume and tone of voice was too loud around it. When hearing this it would first cuddle up and almost protect itself, but then quickly become restless and begin to slam its fists on the table, quieting with a loud noise and aggression. My least favorite image, when thinking this through, was a young child sitting there and witnessing his or her parents fight, helpless and feeling alone. The robot would try to appeal tho this empathy and make people more aware of their surroundings, as they will realize that if they make the robot feel a certain way, it is probably the same for the people around them. Although, will become firm and get them to quite by action and almost scold them. This will almost act as a way to help people love more, fight less, and control themselves when angry. My vision was also that it would create relief for a child who is going through a horrible situation like that and will have someone/thing who is feeling the same emotion and is there for them. It will change the way people fight and interact and hopefully help teach people and improve their actions through the power of love and empathy. What is wood, with moving head and arms, will hopefully be able to improve one of the biggest problem in the world, hatred.