Useless robot

You’ve probably already seen some incarnation of the ‘useless box’ mechanism: it’s a machine that turns itself off. More than that, it’s a machine that mechanically, deliberately turns itself off: you flick a switch, then an arm appears from out of the box to flick the switch back and turn the machine off.

This version, by Toby Chui, has a couple of added features to the basic machine that turns itself off. First of all, there’s that gorgeous little face, which is inspired by the Japanese ‘Kawaii’ aesthetic (Kawaii means ‘cute’). Second, every time the user turns the machine on, the face gets a little more annoyed, until it’s had enough, and the machine will run away.
If it were up to us we’d implement this with a Raspberry Pi Pico and perhaps some off-the-shelf motor drivers, but Toby has gone fully bespoke for this project, using an ESP32-based design and three custom PCBs. For that alone we applaud him, and when you add the cute factor and the beautiful build quality, this is one project that has really impressed us.