Virtual Booth

This project focuses on the development of an ultra-low-cost, voice-controlled 4-Degree-of-Freedom (DOF) quadruped robotic pet, achieving a total material cost of approximately RM150. Commercial programmable robots with voice recognition are often prohibitively expensive. To lower the barrier of ownership, this project utilizes a custom-designed, 3D-printed chassis paired with highly economical electronics, including an Arduino Nano, four standard servos, an I2C OLED display, and a bilingual I2C voice recognition module with integrated sound output. The primary challenge was overcoming the severe mechanical limitations and poor torque associated with low-cost hardware. This was solved by engineering a smart software architecture: a non-blocking state machine manages concurrent I2C polling, facial animations, and motor control, while custom physics-based locomotion algorithms exploit the robot’s weight distribution to prevent servo stalling. The result is a highly expressive, responsive, and accessible robotic platform that proves advanced software can bridge the gap left by budget hardware constraints.