Event
Weekend PoC: Old Redmi 9 Serves as the Brain of a Thymio II
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Reddit user /u/cyberdinn posted a weekend proof of concept: using Lego to mount an old Redmi 9 on a Thymio II, letting the phone act as the robot's "brain." On the phone side, ML Kit is used for face detection (including smile probability) and image labeling (chairs, plants, doors, etc.), and it also handles rough lighting/motion estimation, animated expressions, voice output, and all logging; the robot only executes wheel-speed targets and sends back sensor data. Behavior is a small state machine: cruise→back up→turn→observe→stop steadily; when a face is encountered it enters the "meet" state and can answer "what do you see." Obstacle-avoidance learning is simple: after a collision it tries turning for 1.2 seconds, 2.4 seconds, or 3.8 seconds, scoring by the free-driving duration before the next contact. The user notes that the dashboard screenshots come from a replay/demo mode with simulated camera frames, and that the real robot is the one in the video.
Report timeline
- Using an old Redmi 9 as the "brain" of a Thymio II: an on-device vision, voice, and obstacle-avoidance learning loop
A weekend PoC mounts an old Redmi 9 on a Thymio II using Lego, with the phone running ML Kit face detection (including smile probability) and image annotation, rough lighting/motion estimation, animated expressions, and voice output, while the robot only executes wheel-speed targets and sends back sensor data. Behavior is a small state machine: cruise → back up → turn → observe → stop steadily; when a face is detected it enters a "meet" state and can answer "what do you see." Obstacle-avoidance learning is simple: after a collision it tries turning for 1.2s, 2.4s, or 3.8s, scored by the free-driving time before the next contact.
Reddit r/robotics ·