Tech Thursday: BuddyHome – Living with the robots!

Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu, a techie working with Microsoft has created something called the "Buddy Home" This buddy home does everything, right from cooking to cleaning and keeping a watch on his dietary habits!

BuddyHome: Cleaning Modules

When we are still finding ways to adapt to new technologies emerging everyday, a techie in Bangalore has taken it one step forward and is living in the future. Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu who works with Microsoft as a Developer Evangelist has used technology to his advantage and has created a space that would make one think that we are indeed living in the future.

Ramaprasanna who's been working with Microsoft for the last five years is extremely passionate about robotics, intelligent systems and cloud computing. He has built robots to take care of all his daily chores, all he has to do is a hand gesture and the work is done.

Creative Genius: Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu

Ramaprasanna has designed a model house called "Buddy Home" where technology has been used to its best. He's built various robot modules to take care of his different needs, robots tell him about his dietary plans, take care of his cooking, cleaning and what more? They even interact with him just like his buddies would do.

He built the robots using software including cloud computing, Microsoft.Net, Visual Studio 2010 and Open Computer Vision. "I took about a year to develop buddy home, this concept is definitely unique as I built the whole thing just to cater to my personal needs. In the age, where we reach out to technology, a thought crossed my mind as to what if, technology came to us and that's how the whole thing started," explains Ramaprasanna.

The cooking robot

Buddy Home has about three cameras fixed in various locations in the house; it can read and sense emotions. There is a robot to wake him up in the morning; it can be quite a difficult task considering that he hates waking up early, so in that case it squirts some water over his head and pushes him to get out of the bed. Says Ramaprasanna "I used to hate waking up early and once I even missed a flight because I couldn't get up on time. And often my mother used to joke that only some kind of robot could get me to wake up on time and that's how I built this module,"

As Ramaprasanna wakes up in the morning, his buddy home senses that he's awake and schedules the day for him on the left side of the screen and on the right side displays the top news of the day. "Oh my buddy home, keeps me updated all the time. It takes information from the cloud and prioritizes the work for the day accordingly," says Ramaprasanna.

Keeping a track on his dietary habits

And once he's done with his morning dose of news, he heads to the kitchen and guess what? There's a cooking module which makes noodles for him. The cooking robot has a flexible arm and it can stir the food and keep it from getting burnt. And as the food is getting cooked, Ramaprasanna heads to his living room to scan the news papers. If he looks at an interesting piece of news, and if the buddy home notices a smile on his face, it instantly gets news and updates on that particular topic.

"This is the book reading module; it's very efficient and just makes my life much simpler. Say I'm reading something about Lalu Prasad Yadav and if the buddy home notices a smile on my face, it instantly realizes that I'm interested about the particular topic and gives me all the latest news and updates on Lalu. Another interesting feature is that if I'm reading about some professional from the IT Industry, the buddy home checks my LinkedIn network and if that person is not present in my friends list, it prompts me to add them," Says Ramaprasanna, who's just spent a meager Rs. 16,000 to build the robots.

Also there are other interesting interactive modules, like the IPL module where if the buddy home detects an interest on Ramaprasanna's face, it instantly takes him to the site where you could buy tickets and all Ramaprasanna has to do is flash his credit card and the tickets are booked. There is no need to key in the password or even swipe the card. Just a flash does it all!

Talking about his other modules, he says "I've a tendency to put on weight quite easily, so there's a module which takes care of my dietary habits. If I munch into something that's high in fat content, it instantly warns me and sends out a message on my web screen saying 'Unhealthy Food' but if eat something low in calories, it appreciates me saying 'Good Buddy',"

And as Ramaprasanna leaves for work his cleaning module senses that he's out and begins to clean the house. "It keeps my house neat and clean, or you'll know how a bachelor's pad can be," he says.

When we ask Ramaprasanna about how he's found time to do all this in spite of his hectic schedules, he says "Innovations and Technology are two important parts of my life; I make it a point to keep myself updated with the latest on technology every single day. I spare a couple of hours just to work on the new innovations. Time management is very important and if managed efficiently you can do a lot more,"

In the future Ramaprasanna plans to make his innovations available to the public, he says "There's no point if this doesn't reach out to the people. I want these innovations to make people's life more easier and I'm definitely working towards that,"
Thanks : Syed Abdul Basith
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