MK-II stage 1: the parts are ordered

Up to now BOB has lived entirely on a server: in chats, in Mission Control, in a 3D office. Today the first real hardware for BOB MK-II is on its way.

Why start with a head that doesn’t move

A robot that moves is a lot of moving parts — literally. So we split the build into stages. Stage 1 is a head that already does everything that matters, just without a neck:

• a round 2.8″ display as BOB’s eye,
• a 12 MP camera next to it,
• a 4-microphone array that hears where a voice comes from,
• a speaker for BOB’s own voice,
• and a Raspberry Pi 5 with an AI accelerator for anything that has to happen instantly.

The thinking stays where BOB already lives: Mission Control and Hermes Agent on our server, with his full long-term memory. The head is the body, not a second brain.

First test: does the eye run smoothly?

Before we cut, glue or print anything, the very first parts get one job: prove that the round display runs at a steady 60 frames per second on the Pi. An eye that stutters isn’t an eye. If it passes, the rest of stage 1 follows; if not, we swap the display before it’s built into anything.

Next up after that: the eye comes alive with its states — idle, listening, thinking, speaking.