Abhishek Singh is a programmer and maker from Philadelphia with an eye on big projects that focus on “bringing a smile to people’s faces.” After showing his Peeqo robot design on reddit and other sites in 2016 he realized from the volume of requests that many, many makers wanted to build a bot of their own. Singh is currently running a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Peeqo, the robot that responds in videos and GIFs.
Peeqo is delivered as a kit for makers to build but is designed for three different levels of programmer – no interest in coding, beginning, and seasoned developer. The commitment to Open Source software and hardware with basic plans already available on github. Raspberry Pi 3/3B+ is the base for Peeqo but the campaign page states that as new boards are released by the Pi Foundation they will be compatible with the bot. A four inch in-plane switching screen helps for viewing from all angles, with two omni-directional microphones, a 5 Megapixel camera, two 3 Watt speakers, four programmable buttons, and an LED ring for discreet notifications. Voice detection works with Google Cloud Speech, Amazon Voice Services, Jasper, Mycroft and Snips. The Comment section says that everything has been built and programmed for English but any language compatible with Google Cloud Speech might be used. Giphy, Guggy, and Vlipsy are the main GIF sites that will be used to allow Peeqo to give new responses to repeated voice commands. The comment section points out that pulling videos and GIFs from a computer will be the fastest way to get a response. Singh imagines that users can add functions like weather, timers, device control, and music control to the platform. Linking Peeqos together is also possible to send videos or GIFs back and forth.
Singh says he’s learned his programming and Raspberry Pi skills in the last four years, and is a big proponent of learning by doing. We’ve previously covered his Instagif camera but his website has a few dozen projects he’s worked on, and I’m assuming he’ll keep making and bringing his creations to the world. The commitment to open source and the idea that a ground floor programmer can jump in on this project are my favorite selling points for this project. The campaign for Peeqo ends on March 14, 2019.