Whether or not it’s an elf that stealthily watches from throughout the room or an all-knowing Santa Claus that retains a listing of 1’s actions, spying in the course of the holidays is nothing new. However when it comes time to obtain presents, the extra keen amongst us would possibly wish to know what presents await us a number of days upfront beneath the tree, which is what prompted element14 Presents host Milos Rasic to construct a robotic decoration outfitted with imaginative and prescient and a compact motion system.

On the {hardware} facet, Rasic went with an Arduino Nicla Imaginative and prescient board because it incorporates a digital camera and the flexibility to livestream the video feed over the community. A pair of steady servo motors enable the cell robotic platform to drive alongside the bottom whereas one other set of servos open the decoration’s trapdoor to reveal the wheels and thoroughly decrease it from the tree by a intelligent system of bands and thread.

The livestreaming portion of the undertaking was primarily based off an current MJPEG RTP instance that exposes an internet API endpoint for fetching the most recent body from the Nicla’s onboard digital camera and delivering it by way of Wi-Fi. To manage the robotic, together with winching, driving, and toggling the lights, Rasic created a Node-RED interface that despatched MQTT messages to the Nicla.

To see extra about how this artistic system was designed, watch Rasic’s video beneath or learn his full write-up right here.