Show HN: Rebuild of Blossom, an open-source social robot

From the post:

Blossom is an open-source robot platform for human-robot interaction (HRI) research that I developed during my PhD. I’ve used Blossom for research in design, machine learning, and telepresence; others have made Blossoms for their own research purposes. I have continued working on “rebuilding” the entire platform: I redesigned the inner frame as a model kit, complete with Gunpla-inspired runners and instructions, and refactored the codebase as r0b0, a Python library for communicating between hardware peripherals and software applications. In preparation to present Blossom at Maker Faire Coney Island, I refined the telepresence interface and enabled conversational interaction with a language model. The new repository is available on GitHub and includes documentation for construction.

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Thanks!

There is a guide available in the repo's wiki: https://github.com/hrc2/blossom-public/wiki

Our contributors' forks and extensions may also be useful:

https://github.com/interaction-lab/blossom-public

https://github.com/interaction-lab/BlossomNav

Regarding sourcing the parts, there are online services available to order 3D-printed parts as you would a PCB. The *.stl files are available in the wiki. Though with how accessible 3D printers have become — the well-supported Ender 3 is available for under $100 at Micro Center — you may want to consider taking up printing as a family activity.

Plugging my own robot: Blossom is an open-source social robot made from 3D-printed or lasercut parts and a crocheted / knit cover.

https://github.com/hrc2/blossom-public

It's basically a floating head that others have customized with more functionality (e.g. cameras, microphones, screens, control with a phone) for research applications in human-robot interaction (education, telepresence, an assistant for ADHD task-focusing and CBT). We ran ~90 minute bot-building workshops for middle schoolers; they all successfully completed their robots and seemed to enjoy the hands-on experience.

I've been working on a redesign of a small robot platform I designed in grad school ( https://github.com/psychomugs/r0b0 ). We designed the robot as a small robot construction kit for other researchers and roboticists, and is basically a floating head under a fabric exterior. My last research project used the robot as a tabletop motion-controlled telepresence device accessible through a no-downloads mobile browser.

I never had the time to polish the platform so I did a ground-up hardware and software refactor. The hardware was redesigned as an homage to popular snap-fit robot model kits, with runner layouts and instructions ( https://github.com/psychomugs/r0b0/blob/main/docs/assets/bls... ).

I've tried to generalize the software as an `aconnect` for non-robot-specific hardware devices. The software powers this digital back I designed for my >50-year old Leica M2 ( https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/leica-mpi-a-pi-zero-retrofi... ) and enables quick prototyping of physical IO, e.g. using a MIDI keyboard to control motors or a gaming joystick to control a mouse.

It's mostly a passion project to refine the platform into something more usable than how it was left, but I'm open to suggestions or beta testers!