The idea of the librarian robot is not to substitute the original work of a librarian but to support it, as the robot does not have any kind of limbs to move objects, in this case, books. The robot has sensors that read bar codes, to identify books and check if they are settled the right place, and if they are not, or a book that should be there is missing, an alert is sent to the librarian.

How the robot moves around the library? The movement of the robot is given by a TurtleBot, an open source robot kit which can be compared with a Roomba.

So, the robot moves around randomly (a geolocation feature is about to be implemented), detecting bar codes and analyzing if they are at the right place.

The robot is controlled from a computer via internet, from where the orders are sent, and also from where we turn it on and off.

The robot was crafted at UbiCa Lab, using materials such as wood laths to build the structure, and dark but transparent plastics to cover the sensors without interrupting their signal. Several tools were used to build the robot, such as a voltmeter which analyzes electronic circuits and makes a really unique sound when detecting a short circuit.

The librarian robot works with wireless sensors and all the orders are received via internet. We used a microphone that has a coil inside, and it can detect electromagnetic signals and convert them into sound. It is very interesting to hear the sound produced by the electromagnetic systems of the robot.