Purin - The Cute Robot

Purin is a cute personal robot that is integrated with the Amazon Echo Dot. The name Purin (Poo - reen) is a Japanese word that means Pudding / Flan. The robot was named Purin because of how cute the name sounds. I wanted this robot to be approachable and a cute add on to the Amazon Alexa. 

I worked on these interactions before I started sketching the form because I wanted to make sure that the form made sense. I wanted to create meaningful interactions so I decided to draw out a few of them and figure out what the robot should do. 

For this project, I decided to focus on the form of the robot. I sketched a variety of different forms for the robot. I tried various shapes in order to convey various interactions. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what form would help best communicate the interactions that I wanted. 

In the end, I decided to go with the more geometric form and make it out of wood to make the form more approachable. I considered other materials such as concrete and silicone. However, I chose to not use concrete because it was not approachable and I felt that people would feel uncomfortable having concrete so close to the electronics. I also was thinking of silicone but since that material can get dusty and can squish the electronics inside since the material is squishable. I tested out the form using paper and then transitioned over to wood. However, I dimensioned the box to be too small and so the electronics were not able to fit inside. 

I also decided to go with the more geometric form because when I CADed the rounder forms, the electronics were flat which meant that it would stick out of the form. I started to CAD out the different shapes but realized that it would not work. 

Also, the geometric shape helped convey the idea of tapping the front of the robot to view the weather. 

I then created a third iteration making the robot slightly taller so that I could fit all of the electronics inside of the laser cut form. I also added cork on the bottom to give the robot a semi-floating effect. 

Interaction Demo

The robot 'wakes up' when you say 'Hey Alexa'. Also, the robot is able to display the weather icon when you tap it.  This is a simple interaction that was made using the Alexa and Particle Argon. 

Other 

Below is a diagram of the circuit that I used to make this robot. I used two OLED screens, as well as a vibration switch, piezo buzzer, and a photoresistor.