Hermit crabs are famous for small animals. In their life, they will abandon a shell on their back from time to time to pick up a new shell. [Ken Nakagaki’s hermit project is inspired by this concept. It involves desktop robots, which dock with various modules with different mechanical mechanisms.
As shown in the project video, the small robot enhances itself by interfacing with accessories called “mechanical shell”. They allow robots to move in different ways or interact with the world in new ways.
One housing allows the robot to start a small fan, while the other housing allows the robot to rotate the arrow in different directions. Others let robots work together to drive a larger mechanism, such as a claw or a tactile feedback lever.
A particularly lovely example is the “lifting shell”, which allows one small robot to raise the height of another. Another series of shells allow robots to play various roles in Alice in Wonderland.
This technology is designed around Sony’s Micro two wheeled toio robot, but a vertical actuator is added to the platform to enable the robot to actively dock various shell designs. This is a complex hacker, but it is the key to the whole enterprise. Each robot is controlled by raspberry PIs through Bluetooth communication.
We always like to see lovely robots working together. Play the video after the break.