This holiday season marks the third for the Cozmo SDK and we continue to see amazing work being created by veteran members of the community, as well as newcomers. And then there’s Vector, the newest member to the Anki family. Despite an alpha SDK being released publicly only a couple of weeks ago, we’re already seeing the potent seeds of some fantastic new projects that augment Vector’s included capabilities.
Providing all of you with affordable, expressive, and capable robotics platforms has resulted in some truly inspiring and impactful work, from Dr. Amelia Moody’s work at the University of North Carolina with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), to Prof. Dave Touretzky’s Calypso software being used by hundreds of young students to learn about artificial intelligence. Below are a few recent Cozmo- and Vector-related projects that are not to be missed.
We wish all of you a safe and joyous winter break and look forward to seeing what new heights you take Vector and Cozmo to in the new year.
The Karate Cozmo
The inimitable Dave Schaefer, aka Life with Cozmo, has returned with an epic—and binge-worthy—three-part YouTube miniseries that pays homage to the classic ’80s film , The Karate Kid, as well as the more recent Cobra Kai offshoot. The episodes feature clever writing, incredible production, and so many Easter eggs you’ll have to rewatch them multiple times to catch them all.
Proxima City
Many people unfamiliar with our technologies are surprised to learn that our robots can be and are used in enterprise. Last year, SAP integrated Cozmo with its IoT platform (full tutorial can be found here). More recently, enterprise giant Oracle showed off its Proxima City demo with Cozmo, which highlights the company’s autonomous cloud services.
Cozmo City
In a completely different take on Cozmo navigating a city, the talented folks at Mediadesign Innovation Hub in Germany have crafted an augmented reality exploration using Google’s ARCore and the Cozmo SDK. While others, including ourselves, have dabbled in some AR experiments, this demo in particular offers a tantalizing glimpse of what’s possible when bridging real and virtual worlds.
VectorCloud
Created by rmountjoy and inspired by OctoPrint, VectorCloud provides a web-based interface to control and interface with Vector, in addition to organizing SDK scripts. Future features on the roadmap include photo and video management, and a plugin manager. We have a feeling this project will be a fan favorite for quite some time.
VectorCloud, a web-based interface for interacting with Vector. | Image: @rmountjoy
Vector Explorer Tool
One of the most popular Cozmo SDK projects is the Cozmo Explorer Tool. It serves as a comprehensive interface for event monitoring, animation sorting and viewing, and more, and is useful for exploring all of Cozmo’s various hardware and software features. And now, creator GrinningHermit is developing it for Vector, complete with game controller support. Even in its early state, it’s quite the convenient tool—especially for exploring Vector’s large set of animations.
The Vector Explorer Tool is sure to be an indispensable tool for all SDK users. | Image: GrinningHermit
VectorCards
Last but not least, elknerps has integrated Vector with the You Only Look Once (YOLO) object detection system to have him play a game of blackjack—with real cards. The project is a perfect example of how open and flexible the Vector platform is, and demonstrates how the same concept can be implemented in vastly different ways using Vector’s multitude of hardware and software capabilities (Vector has a built-in blackjack game that utilizes his screen to display cards).
Developer Resources
Be sure to visit the links below to see the full range of projects, get links to source code, and engage with our official developer community.
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Anki Developer YouTube — Subscribe and see how others are using our robotics and AI technologies.
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Anki Developer Forums — Visit the official developer community to converse with others, download projects, and more.
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Getting Started with the Cozmo SDK — New to the Cozmo SDK? This post provides info, resources, and more.
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Getting Started with the Vector SDK — Find tips and instructions on how to install and use the Vector SDK alpha.
Those are some neat, and interesting stuff here. It’s so cool to see what people can come up with these days.
Have a Happy holidays to you, to Cozmo, to Vector, and to everyone else!
Wonderful post @kaiser! AR is something I really want to explore, seeing it here is very inspiring.
And merry christmas to everyone!!!
Great showcases here. Very inspiring!