glorp

If you are looking for a companion who can double as a translator, whether for disabilities or fun, "glorp" is the perfect alien assistant for you!

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Inspiration

Our main source of inspiration came from our costume for this hackathon--Men in Black! The alien pet's translator capabilities are very similar to MiB's Universal Translator, which allows for crossing any language barrier.

What it does

Similar to common house pets like cats and dogs, this alien pet will be a loyal companion. However, it will also listen to everything you tell it to do--including where to go! In addition, it's also a helpful friend who can translate virtually any language to or from any other language.

How we built it

The alien itself was built using a starter kit provided by UNT Robotics and a Raspberry PI 4 provided by UNT's SPARK. We used a soldering kit, also from UNT's SPARK, to solder the wires to 4 motors attached to each of the bot's tires. The movement script was written in Python.

The translator functionality of the bot was also written in Python using an integration of Google Translators API. With the well-documented and versatile 'gtts' library, we were able to include many different languages in this script.

Lastly, the mobile application attached to the bot that stores all translation logfiles was built using Flutter and Dart. However, since our logs are stored in the cloud through a MongoDB Atlas cluster formed using Hashicorp Terraform, we also required a Python script to send GET requests for that data to keep the files on the app updated.

Challenges we ran into

Since the original UNT Robotics starter kit provided an Arduino and not a Raspberry PI, we ran into a few complications while setting up the board and motors. The motors did not come soldered, as we expected, so we had to take some extra time getting that done; lucky for us, two of our team members were already certified to solder at UNT's SPARK. We also took a lot of time to set up all the wire connections, since our members were unfamiliar and had to follow guides. Once all the preliminary setup was done, there was also a lot of struggle to get the bot powered on and running a program.

With the application, things went a lot smoother. Our main challenge was connecting MongoDB Atlas through Hashicorp Terraform and getting the logs stored and displayed appropriately.

Accomplishments We're Proud Of

  • Robot
  • Working translator
  • Working app with backend connection
  • MongoDB setup through Terraform

What we learned

  • Configuring hardware (How to use a Raspberry PI, different cables and connectors required)
  • Using gtts and speech translator
  • For one of our team members; working with Flutter & front-end development in general

What's next for glorp

  • Object detection software to follow its owner and find objects around the house
  • Conversational translation (more similar to the MiB universal translator)
  • Other home assistant tasks (set alarms, start a list, today's news and weather, etc.)
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