The Peek-A-Boo Teddy Bear by GUND is an affordable robotic bear that plays pre-recorded sounds. It has a motorized mouth to simulate talking and motorized arms that can lift a blanket to hide its face.
This guide will show you how to enhance the bear by replacing the electronics inside with a Raspberry Pi 4, an Adafruit Motor HAT, and a couple of options for playing audio such as the MAX98357 I2S Amp and a Mini USB Speaker. The Raspberry Pi 4 will be running a custom Python script that interacts with multiple APIs including two from OpenAI and one from Azure.
It takes inspiration from some iconic bear characters including a popular toy in the 1980s called Teddy Ruxpin that would tell stories while making prerecorded robotic gestures and movements. This project was also inspired by the toy bear from the movie A.I., which was advanced robotic companion designed to provide love and comfort to a child.
This project combines the best of both worlds to create a robotic bear that not only tells stories, jokes, and poems, but…
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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