It isn’t in any respect unusual for an electronics hobbyist to have a cat that “helps” with their tasks by laying on their desk to chew on wires and push issues on the ground. Should you should not have a private assistant of this kind, resulting from allergy symptoms or different considerations, perhaps you’d take into account a desktop robotic? In that case, a current Kickstarter marketing campaign by Wair Dwelling could have simply what you want. They’ve created a pocket-sized robotic known as the KT2 Kungfu Turtle, and as you would possibly guess from the identify, its degree of helpfulness is about on par with a cat.
The KT2 is basically a desktop toy. It might probably stroll round and make itself a nuisance till you give it a little bit pet, or it would do some tips to entertain you. While you tire of those antics, the robotic additionally comes preloaded with 99 interactive video games which you can play with it. The actual enjoyable comes if you get two or extra of those robots collectively. They may have an epic kung fu battle, or play a recreation like tug of battle in your leisure.
Teams of robots can work collectively (📷: Wair Dwelling)
It isn’t solely enjoyable and video games with the KT2 Kungfu Turtle, nonetheless. The robotic can be meant to boost your productiveness at work. It comes geared up with a Pomodoro timer to interrupt up your work into manageable chunks, and KT2 will even offer you periodic reminders to perform a little stretching after being parked at your desk for too lengthy. For the aspiring hacker, KT2 can even flip right into a coding buddy that teaches primary software program engineering ideas with the Blockly visible programming editor.
The tiny quadrupedal robotic is powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller operating at 240 MHz, which additionally supplies Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wi-fi communication capabilities. A 6-axis inertial measurement unit, contact sensor, and microphone give KT2 an consciousness of its environment for the built-in features, or for custom-designed purposes. An onboard rechargeable battery supplies for about 4 hours of working time.
Contents of the package (📷: Wair Dwelling)
Programming coordinated actions in a quadrupedal robotic will be very difficult, so the workforce has included what they name TurtleOS to simplify growth. TurtleOS handles all the tiny, real-time changes that have to be made to take care of stability and keep away from obstacles, even on uneven surfaces. Purchasers additionally get free, over-the-air updates to the robotic’s software program, so its capabilities ought to turn into extra superior over time.
The accessible rewards presently begin at $99 for a single KT2 Kungfu Turtle robotic package, which you will want to assemble by yourself. There are additionally premium kits accessible with additional equipment, and multi-pack kits if you would like a military of cooperative (or kung fu preventing!) robots.