An invidual project carried out in my 3rd year in ECS at The University of Southampton, as part of my Masters in Computer Science.
The Nabaztag, a Wi-Fi enabled smart rabbit, was a once popular foray into the world of Pervasive Computing. Part toy, part personal assistant, it was designed to be a friendly electronic companion that could convey a variety of information to the user using lights, sound, and motion. Whilst it was a reasonably successful product, technical issues plagued the cloud architecture supporting it, until eventually its creator Violet filed for bankruptcy. This report details the process of resurrecting a single Nabaztag:tag device through a combination of replacement hardware and software. By using the emerging WebSocket protocol as a medium for publish-subscribe communication, and by developing a RESTful API for the device itself, the Nabaztag:tag is brought up to date as a modern, internet connected 'thing'.
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The internal circuitry of the Nabaztag was replaced with a BeagleBone Black connected via a serial connection to a custom built AVR circuit which controlled the ear motors and LEDs..
- The AVR code.
- Detailed setup instructions for the BeagleBone Black.
- Code for the Python client running on the BeagleBone Black.
- An API was created, running on the BeagleBone Black, to allow direct control of the Nabaztag.
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A web application was created to allow control of the Nabaztag from a browser, over a WebSocket connection.
The final report submitted upon completion of the project is available here. Full references for any open-source projects used are available at the end of the report.