A Remote-Controlled Dog Is Cheaper Than a Robot
David Fricke noticed that his dog, Molly, was substantially cheaper than a Spot robot and decided to give her remote control capabilities.
You’ve seen those videos of Spot, right? You know, that yellow four-legged “agile mobile robot” that looks a bit like a dog. It is pretty amazing and can traverse all kinds of complex terrain, thanks to literal decades of research and development. But if you want a Spot robot of you own, it will set you back around $75,000. David Fricke couldn’t stomach that price tag, but he did notice that an actual living Labrador Retriever is very affordable in comparison. To get a Spot-like experience, he set out to give his dog, Molly, remote control capabilities.
As Fricke is quick to point out, this isn’t an entirely original idea and others have attempted similar feats in the past. The goal with projects like this is to direct an animal by providing haptic feedback via a remote-controlled device. Not only are dogs common and readily available in most of the world, but they’re also very easy to train — at least as far as animals go. And Fricke already had an adorable black lab named Molly, so she was the obvious test subject.
Fricke wasn’t trying to make Molly do anything crazy; he just wanted to tell her to move forward, turn left, or turn right. To relay those commands, he crafted a dog harness capable of gently prodding Molly in three different places: her chest, her left side, and her right side.
That harness hosts a 3D-printed enclosure that houses a battery pack and a Bluetooth-equipped development board from Adafruit. That dev board controls the three servo motors that poke Molly. It does so in response to commands sent from a simple app on Fricke’s smartphone via Bluetooth.
With the hardware ready, Fricke set out to train Molly to respond to the vest’s haptic instructions. He chose a standard training model relying on treat-based positive reinforcement. Molly is very food-driven, so that seemed like a foolproof plan. But despite Fricke’s dedication and Molly’s best efforts, she just couldn’t grasp the concept well enough to give Spot a run for its money.
Because he isn’t easily dissuaded, Fricke decided to find an animal that would be easier to train: his brother Ethan. With a few minor modifications, Fricke adapted the harness to Ethan’s human body. And after a short training session, he was able to pilot Ethan around the yard along a pre-planned — but secret — route.
There is definitely a joke here about robots and human servants, but I don’t want to risk drawing the attention of our future overlords. I can, however, say that Fricke successfully avoided spending $75,000 on a Spot.