Project: MoiMoi, your digital companion

For this modules project we set out to make a so-called Digital Companion, gave it the name of MoiMoi and designed it to look like a cute little hedgehog. In order to make MoiMoi happen, we used a number of sensors. They are: a motion sensor, microphone and pressure sensor combined with XBee transmitters. On top of that we also used a computer program to know when the computer is in use and the internet for actual news and weather reports.

The motion sensor is attached to the upper part of the prototype. If it sees someone waving in front of it, the sensor will trigger a video of MoiMoi waving at the user. Additionally it also shows a speech bubble containing a headline of some happy news, found on the internet.

The microphone measures the noise in a room at all times. When the user puts on some loud music to dance or sing along to, data coming from the microphone will trigger the animation of MoiMoi dancing, so that they can dance together.

The pressure sensor measures the pressure on the bed to which it is attached. This means that the pressure sensor will send some new data on the very moment a person lays down on the bed in order to go to sleep. The data is sent to the Arduinos inside the prototype via wireless XBee transmitting. The animation then triggered is one of MoiMoi sleeping in a slightly darkened room, so that the user and MoiMoi will be sleeping simultaneously.

When the user boots up their laptop to work on something with it, the separate MoiMoi client computer program will start running as well. Because of this, MoiMoi will also open up the laptop on its screen and work together with the user. Besides, at all times the user can see the weather outside their own place in MoiMois window. Is it raining where you are? There will also be rain outside MoiMois window. MoiMoi knows this because of the actual weather information it gets from the internet.