BirdBot5000
A robot pigeon that reads tweets about pigeons aloud — searches Twitter every 10 seconds, activates a servo, flashes an LED, and speaks each tweet via text-to-speech.
Overview
BirdBot5000 is a pigeon that reads tweets about pigeons.
Built for Electronic Media Studio: Interactivity at Carnegie Mellon University, BirdBot5000 is a consumer device for anyone who wishes to always be in the know about pigeon-related news on Twitter. It can also be configured to search for different keywords over varied time spans.
Tired of reading through an endless scroll of tweets? Have a little birdie tell you the latest news instead!
Every 10 seconds, BirdBot5000 searches Twitter for a new “pigeon” tweet. When one is found:
- The servo activates — the bird pecks
- The Blink(1) LED changes color
- The tweet is read aloud via text-to-speech
- The servo activates again to return BirdBot5000 to its resting position
How It Works
- Temboo — interfaces with the Twitter API and assists in generating Processing code
- Processing + Blink(1) library — controls the RGB LED indicator
- Processing TTS — text-to-speech engine that vocalizes each tweet
- Arduino + Servo — drives the physical pecking motion
Credits
- John Choi — Programming, hardware
- Miranda Jacoby — Co-creator, design
Gallery
