Tardigotchi - Technical

The microOLED screen is powered by a small battery pack located in the centre of the Tardigotchi sphere. The battery pack also powers the Arduino mini which operates the AI code for this pixilated life form. The avatar roams his environment, treating the boundary of the LED screen as walls of a pen. When he is hungry, once per day, his behaviour changes to reflect this state, signalling the owner to feed it.

To feed the Tardigotchi, the owner must place it on the docking station. The docking station is an oblong apparatus with a solid brass base. Once the sphere is positioned on the base, pressing a button initiates the feeding process. When the feeding process has been activated, motors are engaged, which in turn guide a plunger through a syringe filled with moss-water. As the needle enters through the silicon wall of the tardigrade’s home, it simultaneously pumps a small amount of food and fresh water into its miniature ecosystem. While this is occurring, the microcontroller relays the feeding animation to the alife avatar. When the syringe has completed delivery of its precise food allotment, the sequence is reversed: the motors remove the syringe and pulls the apparatus back into a neutral position. The avatar then loops through a short animation which displays his full belly.

You can send praise and adoration to the Tardigotchi through the Tardigotchi’s social networking pages (like Facebook) or by sending it email (tardigotchi (@t) tardigotchi.com). A suite of applications (Processing, mySQL and PHP) keep track of new messages. When new messages are detected, a bluetooth signal is sent to the sphere. This results in a small incandescent lamp being momentarily turned on, which gently warms the tardigrade’s enclosure, while also running a short sunbathing animation of the avatar.