Twitter-scanning robot wants hugs, high-fives
Guardian Robot wants some love. The electronics for the bot totaled just over $97.
(Credit: guardian.co.uk)A tiny robot made of cardboard and $100 of electronics can monitor your Twitter feed and help spread good karma.
Developer Ken Lim's Guardian Robot is gloriously low-tech, with only two servos and a basic control board. Its body was fashioned out of an old Wii Sports Resort box.
But it saves on Twitter reading time.
Profiled on a blog sponsored by the Guardian newspaper, the little guy watches Twitter feeds for keywords indicating happy or sad posts. It reacts to happy tweets by raising its arm in triumph, and to sad ones by lowering its head despondently like Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Guardian Robot remains in either state until it gets a "high five" when a switch on its hand is pressed, or a "hug" through a switch on its belly.
It also sends out appropriate replies though its Twitter account.
Lim is encouraging others to build their own robot slaves by posting the code for the bot. He finds his creation comforting: "I simply have to glance at the robot to get a status update, or simple ignore it when I have to. He has become as reassuring as a wall clock."
Ken Lim's Guardian Robot from InsideGuardian on Vimeo.
(Via Open Platform)
Crave freelancer Tim Hornyak is the author of "Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots." He has been writing about Japanese culture and technology for a decade. E-mail Tim. 
