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Gawkerbot

A robot that stares back at you. What is it? Gawkerbot is a robot (well, sort of) with eyes that locks on to anyone within its field of vision. Eye movement is achieved using a CD drive mechanism and some simple 3D printed mechanical parts. The main components used for tracking are an ATmega microcontroller, two PIR motion sensors and two ultrasonic distance sensors, one mounted inside each eye. How Does it Work? Once placed on its intended spot on the wall, Gawkerbot needs to make an initial calibration run to get to know its surroundings. The ATmega stores the distance to the nearest obstacle or opposing wall for a number of fixed eye position. No one can be in the field of vision during calibration or it will mess up the baseline data. After calibration, when the motion sensor triggers, the eyes starts scanning each position until both distance sensors gets a closer reading than the baseline. Once the eyes has honed in on someone the two distance sensors—cov

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