What is Bennu?

Bennu is a robot which attempts to bridge the gap between what the living and the inanimate. Plants and animals have low-level physiological functions that robots are not capable of, such as hunting for food, water, the ability to sleep, and the ability to live autonomously.This project attempts to mimic these functions while underlying themes related to creation and life.

Bennu is loosely based off Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy is displayed as a pyramid that has the most basic functions of a living thing on the bottom, with each level up subsequently getting more advanced. Bennu attempts to display the first two levels of Maslow's hierarchy. Although he has been given these functions and basic understandings of how his eyes, mouth, stomach, feet, and hands work, it is up to him to decide how to use them. It is a generative artwork in the sense that once created, Bennu is given the opportunity to explore and live his life based upon a basic set of algorithms. Bennu's name comes from ancient Egyptian mythology. The Bennu bird was the mythological phoenix of Egypt, often associated with resurrection and the sun. It is said to be the soul of the sun god Ra. This name was chosen due to the robots dependant relationship with light.

Every living thing has a lifespan though, and to assume Bennu will live forever wouldn't be fair. Bennu's goal is to prolong his life through the absorption of energy, acknowledging the eventual end of life. Bennu will slowly grow old as the battery won't charge up to full capacity, shortening his lifespan every time he eats. Our goal is to implement the basics of life into a robot, starting at the primal stages and later extending to the more mature stages. This version of Bennu only covers those primal stages.

In a gallery space Bennu will be finding his way around the floor and will be mixed in with all the people in the space. This creates an interesting dynamic between people and the robot, as what they do will affect how it moves and reacts. Bennu is afraid of people. If they get too close he will run away, and if they stand above him and block out the light he will try to escape. This affects his survival rate. Depending on how the audience reacts to Bennu will be a factor in determining how long he can live. A person could chase him towards the light while a predator could trap him and make him waste all his energy trying to get away.

Bennu is an experimental artwork challenging the ideas of what it means to be alive. It is hard to tell just how it will react once finished, but that's part of why it is so interesting. With a mind of its own and a means to survive almost anything could happen. In later versions of Bennu, there are plans to create multiples of the robot to explore the social needs experienced throughout life.

How does he work?

Bennu uses an intelligently arranged series of photocells to detect where the highest presence of light is in a room. Arranged around the solar panel it is possible to detect which direction the strongest light is coming from. Bennu uses all three photo cells to determine if he is in a good location to wait and absorb his food(light) through a solar panel. The solar panel charges the internal battery, which allows Bennu to live in areas that have no light for a limited amount of time. Bennu has wheels to move around the room in search of food. To stop him from running into anything, his photo cells double as a collision detection device. When close to an object the light level will be lower in that direction, and therefore Bennu will turn away.

Bennu is controlled by an Arduino microcontroller which responds to the inputs from three photo cells. Based upon these numbers a signal is sent to an L293 chip which determines the direction and speed the two gear motors should be spinning. The solar panel trickle charges the NiMH AAA batteries. Bennu is programmed with a set of behaviors. This determines his body language, which gives the audience a sense or patience, happiness, or emergency depending on Bennu's dire need for food and sleep.

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