Construction of Robot for Visual Demonstration at Conferences and Fairs

A demonstration robot for conferences and fairs has been built from scratch. The demonstration robot is meant to create lasting impressions at the company booth at conferences or fairs. Thus, the robot needs traits that attract people to the booth and makes sure they remember that company. In this project, traits such as being able to move, do facial expressions and play audio have been developed. The robot has also been designed to draw as much attention as possible to the booth. This was achieved by building a robot that consists of a rolling sphere with a head that always remains on top. All movements are carried out from inside the sphere by four different motors. One motor moves the robot back and forth, two motors spin a flywheel to turn the robot and the last motor rotates the head. These motors are mounted at different places on an internal structure. The internal structure is connected to the sphere at two points, one on each side of the robot. At the top of the internal structure, magnets are placed. Thus, it can attach the head at the outside of the sphere by mounting magnets in the head. All movements of the robots are controlled by a hand controller, which has been made in this project. The head has a built-in display simulating two eyes. The display is driven by a Raspberry Pi. An internal speaker is built-in inside the head, connected to the Raspberry Pi. Each simulated eye consists of 64 squares that can be programmed to be in different colours, thus making it possible to express a wide range of facial expressions.Two PCBs were designed and manufactured to control the robot. One was placed inside the robot, and the other inside the hand controller. The PCBs can communicate over Bluetooth, which makes it possible to control the robot from the outside.All parts of the robot have been designed in a CAD program and subsequently 3D printed. 3D design in CAD was learned from a novice level, since there was no previous knowledge of this in the project group.In addition, a registration form has been developed that allows visitors to register at the booth. Making it easier for the company to connect with visitors after the conference or fair. The registration form is connected with the Raspberry Pi in the head of the robot via Wi-Fi. Thus, when new registrations occur, the robot can print the names of them while audio is played.