I'm going to make a robot pet

I love my life but I was thinking about how “samey” it is - mainly work, family, and computer gaming/bike rides. No real creative hobby…

The thought came to me I could create a robot pet:

• autonomous, and can recharge itself at a dock just like a Roomba

• with a radar system etc to figure out where it is and do navigation

• when senses - a camera with face recognition, mic for speech recognition, screen to show facial expressions, and speaker to talk back

• use AI modules (an LLM and image recognition) for understanding/communication and also as an “agent” i.e. to make decisions

I could quickly see it all in my head - chassis with wheels, on board computer, and then maybe pipe the heavy computer to my upstairs PC and possibly the web (but my PC can run LLMs okay).

Speaking of upstairs, I quickly decided that the ultimate goal would be for the robot to make its way upstairs at will.

I asked my wife if she would be okay with me installing an elevator in the panty that would lift the robot up, and then we get a carpenter to punch a hole in the wall so it can sort of “cat flap” its way to the upstairs hallway.

Thumbs up! Okay we got a plan!

Since that moment I’ve spent about 20 hours researching, then ordered parts for the first dumbed down prototype.

Project has begun…