On March 13, Huawei’s “genius boy” Zhihui Jun released a new work after three months. This time he designed a small desktop robot named "Electronic". Different from existing interactive robots, "Electronic" can be regarded as a computer accessory, which can control computer brightness and sound in one step, and act as an "anthropomorphic camera" wait.

"I picked up a mouse pad and wanted to get a computer."

This video was updated on Zhihui Jun's B station personal channel and Weibo. He said that "electronics" are a whole Not very difficult, but very interesting side project.

At the beginning of the video, he first introduced the motivation for the project, which is a story of "picking up a mouse pad and wanting to equip it with a computer." Zhihuijun, who is keen on collecting various screens, got a round LCD screen this time. There are already many projects using this kind of screen to make watches and pendants. He set his sights on the field of robotics that interests him.

Zhihui Jun said that there are many mini robots, such as Toyota's conversation robot "Kirobo Mini" and Sony's music egg "Rolly". However, the functions of these products are too single, and their scalability and openness are limited. It is not strong, and is limited by factors such as size. To achieve slightly smarter interaction, you have to rely on mobile phone chips.

How to have a robot that does not need to be charged, is on standby at any time, and has powerful computing power? Zhihui Jun's idea is to design it as an accessory for the computer, so that you can get computer applications, powerful computing power, and always be connected to USB.

The robot arm can be used as a "keyboard"

After confirming the idea, Zhihui Jun started the project design.

The first is the hardware part. Based on the previous LCD screen, he expressed his "aesthetic online" and used curve modeling to design a round head and round body, with "two pieces" arms and a Robot with a round base. As one of the main entrances for interaction, he hoped that the robot's mobile phone could rotate forward, backward, and left and right at the same time. To this end, he designed a unique steering gear + gear structure in a limited space.

Subsequently, through a series of circuit, main control board and sensor design, the robot hardware was ready. The next step was the design of the software, which was also what netizens called "the beginning of the feature film."

If it is just used as an "electronic" player, it is not much different from the previous small robots. To this end, Zhihui Jun has developed a complete, multi-level open SDK.

"Electronic" gesture recognition

How does "electronic" work? He gave a demonstration in the video. By adjusting the robot's right hand, he could control the volume and brightness of the computer, and it could partially function as a keyboard. In addition, the robot also has the function of AI algorithm recognition of gestures. "If there are two robots, during the video, not only will my face appear on the robot's screen, but it can also imitate my hand movements in real time." When Zhihui Jun talked about this function, netizens commented one after another "True digital twin".

At this point, he also mentioned the reason for the naming. The robot is called "Electron", and the computer connected behind it is the "brain" of Electronic, or "computer" for short.

"Electronic" can imitate the hand movements of the speaker during the video

Mr. Zhihui said that the above functions are just a "shallow demonstration", and he attached it at the end of the video Open source addresses for software and hardware are available for secondary development.

Zhihui Jun’s last two works that hit the screen were a robotic arm that can stitch grapes, and a self-driving bicycle that can go straight, turn, and avoid obstacles. According to data, Zhihui Jun graduated from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2018. He first worked in the OPPO algorithm position, and then joined the "Huawei Genius Youth Program" and is currently a Huawei AI architect. Before becoming Huawei's "Genius Boy", Zhihui Jun was already a well-known UP owner in the technology area of ??Bilibili.

At the end of this video, Mr. Zhihui recalled the technical help post he posted on the forum 10 years ago when he first started, and sighed, "Ten years of drinking ice can't cool your hot blood. Fortunately, Yes, the 'rookie' ten years ago plunged his head into the desert like an ostrich, and then discovered that under the sand was a sea of ??stars.

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Reviewed by: Sun Shijian