Attend lectures from home using a cheap robot

it is morning already and it's 8:15am, your alarm didn't wake you up! or maybe you turned it off after snoozing it three times. you have to be in class by 8:30am and you hate being late, you are too tired to get up because you were up most of the night watching netflix; you really want to miss the class but it's Professor Dicbig's class and you really love his lectures. but what if a robot represents you in class. when I say robot, some people imagine a very sophicated machine that can run, walk and give high-fives.

but it doesn't have to be so complex. it can be just the robot's head with eyes(cameras) and ears(mic) connected wirelessly to your laptop so you can be at your lecture in your bed.

all you have to do is handover the robot to your friend that takes the same classes as you. he can put it in his bag or be the weirdo that brings a robot head to school everyday. once he gets to class, he should take out the robot head(other students would be so confused), turn on the robot and put the mic close enough to the professor/lecturer. I think getting a friend to take a robot head to school everyday is the hardest part of this project. you can decide to pay someone, is it worth it??
With time, you can add more features to your robot. features like: motion detection(so the camera can follow the professor as he moves), a speaker(so you can talk to your friend or ask questions in class), maybe add rotor and ardruino so you can rotate the robot head from your home and you won't always have to look at the lecturer/professor or the board all the time. if you are pervert, you could also check out the girls or guys in class when you are bored; you can even do this without being noticed by adding hidden spy cameras around the head of the robot. Also, you are not actually in the lecture hall so you can take a nap or even eat during lectures and nobody would know.

 

you can make things even easier by adding an sdcard to the robot so you can save the video of the lecture on the sdcard; you can watch it whenever you want and also easily pause/continue the lecture.
The design
Now for the structure/design, you can get creative here as there are so many designs of a cool robot head i can think of.
this is a basically a simple project for anybody. you can use cardboard or 3d printer. I recommend 3d printer because it is easier and your robot would look more realistic.

The eyes(Camera)
Now for the eyes(camera), there are spy cameras you can get on Amazon for under $100 that have a long range. make sure to get a spy camera which is very clear so you can easily see what lecturer/professor writes on the board. you also have to ensure your friend seats in the front row so you can get a good view. select the best spy camera, depending on how far you are from school. another alternative to purchasing a long range camera is purchasing a short range camera then tell your friend to connect his phone to the spy camera and video call you through any social media platform; if he does this properly, then you should see what is in front of the spy camera in the video call.

The ears(the mic)
there are also long range microphones with high sensitivity you can get on Amazon for under $100, these microphones will be able to record whatever the lecturer/professor is saying clearly if it is kept close enough to the lecturer. the alternative is similar to the alternative of using long range spy cameras mentioned above, your friend can easily connect the microphone to his  phone and voice call/video call you through any social media platform.

In the future, students won't have to go to lecture halls. lecture halls would contain only cameras and a lecturer/professor with a mic.

professors/lecturer would wear headphone and mic so students can ask questions on the topic being taught and they can respond. this would also help shy students ask questions and get help personally from their professors.

all students would be able to stream lectures on the school's website.

I didn't really go into detail on this, it is more complex than i described it but not too complex for a beginner to handle. i have been working on this project; I'm going to test it out in school soon. subscribe to this blog or just type your email below and I'll send you an email when the next blog is up.