Meet TELEBOT, the DIY Telepresence Robot of Your Nightmares

Many of us are sheltering in place these days, but with the Internet it’s possible to stay connected in ways that would have been difficult or impossible just a short time ago. While you might point to applications like Zoom or Skype, this apparently wasn’t good enough for Hunter Irving and his brother Josh.

They decided to hold a hackathon in their one bedroom apparent to see how they could improve the situation. They invited everyone that lives there — meaning it was a fairly small two-person event — but it turned out to be fruitful nonetheless.

What they came up with is a partially 3D-printed telepresence robot face which uses a modified IKEA lamp for (manual) movement around the room. The mouth assembly is fashioned from wind up chattering teeth and the eyes are from a 1960s-era doll, moved by a trio of small servo motors. Red LEDs are also used to light up the eyes for a Terminator-like effect.

The aptly named TELEBOT utilizes an Arduino Uno to coordinate movements. But instead of it being a sort of solo AI companion, audio signals are fed to it via a 3.5mm jack, allowing it to emulate far off friends’ mouth and eye movements. While reactions to the design were mixed, it looks like a fun project, and it does of course feature customizable hats including those of cowboys and wizards.

Though it appears the brothers came in both first and last in their hackathon, one judge/participant notes that they “deserve a special award just for that.” Whatever “that” is.