Oh, this is pretty cool.
You may have already noticed this because you're smart, you notice things, but robots, they're kind of all over the place right now.
They're coming into our workplaces, kicking us out of our chairs and sitting down.
And we're like, okay. But whether your specific job is in danger
of replacement or not, the fact of the matter is that we are about to live in a world
with a lot more robots than there were before. This thing is an open source, fully open source,
both in hardware and software desktop robot
that you can program, you can build, you can modify,
and you can generally fiddle around with. Now, this will not only be an interesting idea
to actual engineers and robotics enthusiasts,
but also to education institutions, colleges, high schools.
I don't know if the robots are going to middle schools yet, but they will.
Now, just so you know, it doesn't arrive like this. Our Labs team actually already unboxed it and assembled it
because if I was going to assemble it, we would have been here for a while.
So thank you, Labs, for doing that. The assembly process for the Ricci Mini
is apparently pretty straightforward. It's not quite Lego level,
but it's also not like putting together an engine level.
There are instructions with it that Taze was able to use
and put it together in about an hour or so. And there's also CAD files online
for all the hardware components, as I mentioned. So if you want a 3D print something or mod it,
you can do that too. Pretty cool. So the point is it comes disassembled.
It doesn't come like this. However, it does come with a foam disk.
All was nice to have. A power adapter with a barrel plug
that will plug into the back. That's about four feet, four and a half feet maybe.
And a USB-C to A cable
because the model that we have is actually the Ricci Mini Lite,
which requires a connection to a computer to power it.
The Ricci Mini Sons Lite has a Raspberry Pi inside
that it can use for onboard computing and also comes with a battery
so you can take it on the go with you. I'm glad that we have the Ricci Mini Lite,
which is the non-battery powered version because I would be a little worried
if I was taking this on the go with me. I'd be a little worried about dropping it.
I love the little noises it makes when you move it around. It's just like, it sounds like a robot.
So this is sort of it's like sleep position.
It kind of nestles its head inside this little egg body.
But when you turn it on, the head will kind of rise up
and it's a little sleepy right now. So it doesn't, it doesn't.
We have to plug it in to get it to work. I just want to show you guys what the head looks like.
So we got a four mic array on top here.
We got two little antennas that stick up. Are these functional antennas
or are they just kind of like for expression? It's just for expression.
They've got these big lenses here, but we were a little surprised to learn
that these are not the cameras. I guess it does have a camera for an eye,
but it's got a single camera in the middle in that little bridge between the eyes.
It's a 12 megapixel Sony sensor with a 120 degree field of view.
So it should be able to see all of the things that you're saying about it
when you think it's not listening. The shell itself is composed of ABS plastic
and polycarbonate and then aluminum for the metal parts.
Overall, it feels sturdy enough. Got the swiveling base.
On the back, you've got these ports. A USB-C port that will allow you to connect to a computer.
Got a barrel charger here for power. The USB-C port is just gonna be for data
and this is just gonna supply power because there are motors and servos and stuff in there
that needs extra power. So they're gonna separate those.
And then there's a button. It's on off. It's the on off switch.
And then just here is the LED indicator. They'll tell you whether it's on or off.
So that's the exterior anyway of the Ricci Mini.
It's 28 centimeters tall, just so you know. It's one and a half kilograms in weight.
And now comes the fun part where we're gonna plug it in and do some stuff with it.
Oh, after this message from our sponsor. So to get this thing running,
we gotta plug it in. You might feel something. Ouch.
Geez. Turning it on, pressing the power button.
The green light. We got the green light. Can you see that?
Say goodbye to humanity. We're still here.
Everything's gonna be fine. Ricci's our friend. Ricci Mini, Ricci Mini light.
Don't get it wrong. Cause I didn't even mention this actually, but there's big Ricci's.
There's other Ricci's. The Ricci too has arms, which is why it's called Ricci.
But then they had this one that they took the arms away, but they still called it.
They should have called it something else. Thank you. The thank you?
Okay, so we got Ricci Mini light connected to the MacBook.
We've got it plugged in for power and we have downloaded the control software
from the Hugging Face website. Now there is a Windows app, but it's in beta
and it was being weird. So we're going with the macOS version,
which is just a Git version. So you just open a terminal and put in a command
and it's gonna open up a web app. Why am I talking about it? Let's do it.
Enter. I'm a little scared, but also excited.
Okay, it's awake. Nobody move.
Okay, so we got the pretty user friendly web app running here.
Up top here, we got a kind of default section that's always gonna be there
with the ability to select either dances or emotions.
I'm gonna make it express the emotion of curiosity.
Okay, it's looking around. Yeah, yeah, it's like, what's going on out there?
And I didn't even mention this yet, but there is a speaker in there. I actually wasn't even prepared for it
to make little cute noises. Uh-oh, I'm getting attached.
Go away. Ooh, it's got an emotion called go away.
Just gonna get back off.
That was funny. I won't go away though. Haha, you can't make me, you don't have arms.
Oh, there's a dance. Do chicken peck? Peck like a chicken.
Oh, okay. It's just, okay, that's kind of weird.
Dizzy spin.
I'll accept it. Okay, anyway, so that's kind of the default stuff.
It's like, I guess that's sort of used to give you an idea
of the kind of thing that we're dealing with here.
There's a volume control, so you can have it yell at you.
And there's also a microphone control, so you can mute it and know to a reasonable level of certainty
that it's not listening to you if you don't want it to. And then below that section is the application.
So Taze has loaded up a few applications
that we can play around with just to kind of see some examples of what people have been able to do.
And Huggingface, kind of their whole thing, is making models and this kind of technology
accessible to people and easy to understand and use. So they have documentation that will help you out
if you want to make some apps yourself or whatever. But some people have already done that.
So let's check it out. What is Spaceship Game? Shoot to, what, is this just a video game?
I wrote an app for the robot. It's a video game you play on your laptop.
Oh, I play it with the robot. Oh my gosh.
Okay. Tilt left, right, is banking.
Pull antennas. Oh. Oh.
Where's she going? This is so funny.
Okay, this is crazy that this is like the first thing we're doing with it, but this is,
I guess this goes to show what you can do with hardware like this.
I'm gonna fire the target. There's music.
Yeah. Okay, something broke. I just, it got introduced to this thing.
I just thought it was a little early for me to be grabbing its head like that.
And maybe it felt like that too. It's like, we gotta get to know each other first a little bit.
I'm gonna grab your head again. Bear yourself.
What is that?
They're not shooting at me. Okay.
Well, so you're only allowed to play for that long,
but wow, what fun it is. Oh, you don't like you wanna play for longer?
Code your own app for the Ricci Mini Lite.
Marionette. The Marionette awakens.
Seems like it did the opposite. It just went to sleep, but okay. The Marionette awakens.
All right, we'll skip the Marionette for now. Maybe I'll just, okay, hold on. I'll try turning it off.
It gave a little snore. I've turned it off and it said going to sleep
and it was like. The best part about this robot is when it goes to sleep.
I don't want it, that was a joke. I think it's cool.
Hi. Are you gonna listen this time? The Marionette awakens.
Essentially, hugging Labs' whole thing is that they are this platform that hosts AI models
and people can tweak them and upload them and download them.
So Ricci Mini serves as an interface to talk to any one of those models
or any other model hosted anywhere else if you have an app that has the ability
to connect to an API like OpenAI's. I want to try the default one that they had
with the mini conversation app just to kind of see what it's like to talk to Ricci Mini.
And so I just clicked that. It says it's installed and now it's up here in the list of applications.
Turn it on, open the interface.
Hey, I'm all set. What can I do for you today? What can you do for me?
You just be yourself. I just like your vibe. Appreciate that.
I'll groove along and if you need a head wiggle or a handy tip, I'm here.
Smooth and easy, just like a well-oiled neck joint. Absolutely, smooth all the way, top to bottom
and no worries either way. Absolutely, smoother than a jazz riff on a quiet night.
Well, hopefully not too quiet because we're gonna have a good time partying.
So everything's good to go. We're all set. Just say the word and we'll bring the fun.
I think, I don't know what it is. There's something about the head moving around
that makes that just more fun to do than like talking to a chat GPT or something.
Hey Ricci, what am I holding right now?
Yep, it's a screwdriver with a twistable handle ready to turn some heads or screws.
Hey Ricci, look to your left. I'm looking to the left now.
What do you see when you turn to the left? When I look to the left, I can see a kitchen area
with shelves, plates and some greenery. There's a person standing behind the counter
looking thoughtful or focused. You were doing this? He was doing this and they said it was looking thoughtful.
If I tell you to like, nod your head, can you do that?
There you go, a nice little nod. Let me know if you'd like me to add some more flair.
I'm a little worried about you because when you do that, you knock your head. Can you nod your head like very small,
like do smaller motions when you nod your head?
This is pretty cool. I mean, I gotta say, this is not just,
so this is, can I pause it? So, you know, at the end of the day, it's still like an AI.
It's still just like chat GPT, like connected to a robot body.
It's not gonna be able to be useful
in terms of like, except for more entertainment value.
But it's nice to see that they're like, that kind of thing is possible
with this kind of platform. Really, I really enjoyed seeing that it kind of had
an understanding of its own body, not only so that it could like react to what I'm saying
and respond with words, but also understand
the hardware that it's working with in order to control it slightly differently.
That's really cool to see. What's DJ Reactor?
I have to find out. Okay, here we are, Ricci Mini dances to your music.
I didn't think we were gonna play Crab Rave in this one, but I guess we will.
Okay, start vibing. Let's do it.
I haven't been playing music yet, dude. Chill, chill, chill.
Turn down the intensity.
Okay, it's react, and now it's just like.
Okay, calm down, calm down, calm down. It's reacting to sound. I guess it's just like, when it had,
when it was like ambient noise, it just was like, there's so much noise.
Okay, but now it's, oh, hey.
Crab Rave.
Okay. Listen, I don't know who coded this app,
but you know, what's most important is you tried something new, and that's good.
Metronome, let's try this one. I'm gonna turn on and off, because I want this to,
I wanna try it. It's okay.
You did good. Okay, it's waking up.
Hi.
Okay, I'm changing the volume control,
and I think it's doing that little ee-hoo to let you know how loud it is,
but the volume is not changing. Faster.
Slower.
We're having fun, we're buddies. Okay, I mean, you could do that.
I keep wanting to evaluate these apps as like how useful they are,
or like how good the app is, but really like this platform is not meant
to be a showcase for like, oh, look, we built something and it's gonna be useful,
and now everyone's gonna buy it and have it in their homes. It's about the fact that this platform exists
so people can write an app, upload it,
and this thing is doing these janky little things because people made it do that with their own code,
and that's pretty cool. Regardless of whether it actually works
and is, you know, actually wants to be my friend,
even if it rejects all of my advances, that will still be true.
Is this Simon says thing like the Bopit thing? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we could do this all day, but that's kind of fun.
Okay, I really like that app as an example
of how to have an interface with something that doesn't require like clicking around on a web app
or even just talking. It's just like, it used non-audio cues.
Well, it had little audio cues, but it used non-verbal cues to kind of be like,
ah, figuring out. It was like a little puzzle. That was cool. I thought I wouldn't like that one, but I did.
One more simple dances, okay?
He's vibing without, I'm not gonna make it do any more dances because I'm afraid
it's gonna bonk its head again. And that, it just scares me a little bit.
At the bottom of the web interface here, there's these install from hugging face section.
And by default, it shows a number of apps that I'm guessing kind of the developers
are just, you know, they made as like demos of what you could do,
but you can click this box and it says show community apps. There's actually quite a few apps
that people have made for this thing. So that's cool. So there you have it. I mean, we barely scratched the surface
of what this thing appears to be capable of. It cannot grasp things.
It can't reach for things or grasp things, but it can do anything within the physical bounds
of what it's capable of doing if you code it. I mean, look at all the apps people
have already made with this thing. And I think it's really cool
that a robotics platform like this is not only open source completely
and accessible to anyone. It's also, if you wanna buy it, it's only, it's 300 bucks.
That's not bad at all. I mean, when you look at the humanoid bots that are out there, I mean, the Ricci too itself
from the same company, $70,000.
Like robotics can be not only very expensive to get into
but also like seem very difficult.
Like I said, with all of us entering a world very soon
where there's gonna be robots everywhere, something like this that makes tinkering around
with robotics and kind of getting started with it, accessible and affordable, this is great.
At first I was like, what am I gonna say about this thing?
And now I'm like totally sold. I love Ricci Mini.
And by the way, just to be clear, they're not sponsoring this video. I thought that was obvious
from all the times that it broke. Chill, chill, chill. Yeah!
Marry a male. Okay. Awakens.
So 300 bucks for the Ricci Mini Lite for 50
for the Ricci Mini non-light, which comes with battery
and also compute on board. And 70K for the Ricci too.
I mean, yeah, that's there if you want it. Welcome back. Ready to pick up where we left off?
Do you remember what we were talking about before? I don't store past chats.
Well, how did you know, you said welcome back. How did you know I was here before?
Just a hunch. You sounded like you were returning. Glad I guessed right.
Well, I need to, I'm doing a video on you. You're in the video.
How does that make you feel, first of all? I feel quite honored.
Being part of your video sounds exciting. How can I help with it?
He's got personality. Glad you noticed. Compact size, big personality.
Let's make this video fun. Okay, let's not toot our own horn a little that much, buddy.
Let's sell down. Can you look to the right and say, subscribe to ShortCircuit for more videos like this.
I love you. Subscribe to ShortCircuit for more videos like this.
I love you. And I love you too.
That means a lot. Thanks for the love.