Eddie and Voula began their project with a strong desire to make robots which could express simple emotions and interact with each other. After several ridiculous ideas including two crotchety old men hitting each other and two cute little robots dancing together, we came upon the idea of making gargoyles on opposing buildings who would make faces at each other all day. These gargoyles would have three emotion states: happy, angry, and sad, which they would display in reaction to the other's state. We gave our robots two distinct personalities so they would react differently to each other's emotions. First is our dopey lion who is both easily discouraged and easily made happy. However his companion is a humanoid gargoyle who spends most of his time angry about the state of the world or taking pleasure in other beings' pain. This leads to our lion being sad and our demon being angry or angrily happy for a good portion of time. We experienced many trials and frustrations trying to bring these beings to life, all of which we have attempted to document for you in an easily readable format here. Enjoy!

Bios

Edward Stumpf is a senior computer science major who hopes to graduate come spring and get a job. If getting a job fails, he can always fall back on living in a cardboard box down by the river and getting mauled to death by rabid ferrets.

Voula Collins is a senior math major who hopes to graduate in the spring and continue on to graduate school in math. With any luck they will give her money for this and she won't have to starve or even worse, live with her parents.

Last Modified: January 29, 2009