Although Panic paused development on its official Playdate charging dock, an enterprising character artist has swooped in with an open-source kit (via Gizmodo) that transforms the device into an interactive robot pet.
Playbot is Guillaume Loquin’s name for the cute add-on, which anyone with the right know-how can build. (For those without know-how, don’t be shocked if you eventually see others sell builds on platforms like Etsy.) Made with two wheels, a motor, a microcontroller and a 3D-printed casing, it taps into the Playdate’s built-in accelerometer, microphone and sensors to turn the indie game console into a charming desktop companion.
Loquin, whose day job is as a character artist at Ubisoft, put those skills to use in bringing the device to life. He told Engadget the console stood out as a unique creative canvas. “I fell in love with the Playdate console — its unique form factor, the SDK developed by Panic,” he said. “And, of course, its distinctive crank makes it an incredible platform for exploring new possibilities.”
“Like many others, I initially thought about creating a charging dock for my Playdate,” Loquin said. “Then I thought: Why not add wheels to it? Having worked in the video game industry for many years, I enjoy combining my gaming expertise with robotics.” His previous projects include a wheeled robot (minus the Playdate) and a bipedal humanoid one that wouldn’t look out of place in a Tim Burton film.
Although Playbot won’t do anything crazy like have a chat, pop wheelies or play fetch, Loquin’s video below shows it reacting to a wake-up tap, navigating around a corner and getting dizzy after spinning the Playdate’s crank. It can also scoot around your desk, steering clear of obstacles and avoiding a plummet off the edge.
The developer estimates 45 minutes of play per charge. When you aren’t playing with the device (in game console or robot form), the robo-dock charges the console.
Loquin told Engadget he began the project in June. He said the hardware phase of development was relatively quick, but software was more of a sticking point. “The software development proved far more complex than anticipated, as the robot uses three different codebases: C++ for the microcontroller, Lua for the Playdate application, and Python for exporting animations from Blender,” he said. “These three programs need to communicate with each other, which represents a significant amount of code for a solo developer.” He also found documenting and formatting the project for its open-source release more time-consuming than expected.
Loquin told us he would love to see someone build their own Playbot someday. “That would make all these efforts worthwhile,” he said. The developer provides the 3D printing instructions, companion app’s code and firmware for its Teensy 4.1 microcontroller on GitHub.
Update, December 17, 2024, 2:44 PM ET: This story has been updated to add quotes and background from the developer.
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