Jacob F ‘26

Principal Investigator for the Artificial Intelligence with Robotics Integration Group

Board member

AI “living” alongside humans

Jacob’s fascination with nonhuman emotions led him to PI the Exploration of Robotic AI With Human Interaction research group. This group’s goal is to experiment with how AI with emotion affects humans.

See the full researcher profile here.

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”

-Albert Einstein

Current active paper

November 1, 2024,

I will get a new Arduino and try to change the voltage on the drivers more safely so I don’t blow out a nice expensive Arduino. I know what I did wrong (touched wires that hate everything) so ill be more careful. tldr slow down so no big boom. i will also do more journal updates

Oct 29, 2024

Alot of my time recently has gone into dark matter days, so not have much time on the arm. Will work on inquirer, then work on arm.

Sep 27, 2024

I sent a tutorial video to an aspiring apprentice for the Emotiv software for her Into the Wild project.

Sep 26, 2024

My new goal: get at least one motor working

Sep 15, 2024

I seem to have been mildly scooped :(. I still can do the emotional stuff. see stuff published by Dr. Behnaz Farahi: DESN 490: Generative AI and Robotics

Sep 10, 2024

My code is the issue. I am currently working with Dash to help fix it. I am using the Marlin Code system for RAMPS 1.4.

Sep 6, 2024

So my new plan dosnt’t work I was right about the horrible my code dosnt’t work and I have to do it again.

Aug 22, 2024

Wowza thats been a minute! junior year and im exited to work on the arm. this is going to be so fun and yet so horrible. SCIENCE!

May 20,2024

Wow, last class of my sophomore year. Here’s a quick recap of all the fun stuff I did!
-I rebuilt my robot and began wiring it.

-I joined the WISRD board and was a productive member

- I started with a band of interns and got leadership skills from that

Anyway I am excited for next year, when my arm should be doing arm things!! :)

May 6, 2024

Today I almost finished wiring. RIGHT at the wiring of it 2 of the gear thingines holding the belt came off and ruined my day. Im super gluing them so I no longer have to deal with it.

Apr 25, 2024

Yesterday was poster session! I found out great information about the ROS system from grad students, and also found a weakness in my robot, as it broke last second. Easy fix tho. The optical engineer from JPL was very awsome!

Apr 16, 2024

Today was the board retreat. We got a lot of work done. I don’t really want to type all my notes so here they are

Mar 15, 2024

Lots of work done, I finished the third rotation module (yellow) and now am just finishing putting things together. On track to hit my goal.

Feb 26, 2024

Conferences are coming up quickly. I have gotten a LOT of work done on my arm. It no longer looks like a very expensive pile of plastic. for those reading this: please add the belts BEFORE you screw everything in :)

Feb 1, 2024

Today I welded two parts together, as well as putting metal screws to reinforce them. I think I will do more welding for this arm, as it is really strong.

Jan 29, 2024

I have had my interns disassemble my old arm. I have learned when I say “Disassemble the arm”, I have to be specific to tell them to not disassemble the motors as well.

RIP servo motor, you did your job well. (Not really, the arm never worked but don’t tell the motor that)

Jan 18, 2024

Today I (tried to) begin building the robot. I thought I lost a piece, but never printed it so that was fun. I also want to mention (for future wisrd members I am using BCN3D MOVEO, an open source arm)

Dec 14, 2023

This might be my final entry for 2023, so here is a quick recap:
I found my arm to be too heavy, so I tried to drill holes, now I’m using an open-sourced arm code and design. I also recruited two interns, Isla P, and Lila H, to help on my project. All is alright, I wish I got more done, but after break, I should be able to begin assembling :D

Nov 30, 2023

The Bill of materials is complete. Now I am using an open-sourced robot arm design to act as TIM. Now, I am waiting for the 3D prints to finish, and for the materials to drive. In the meantime, I will analyze the data received from the Wildwood art project with WISRD (STEM to STEAM) and finally get my project approved, because I never did that apparently. :(

Nov 8, 2023

Today I have set some benchmarks for my AI system. I will use Dall-E to render the images and pixelate them. The arm will be set up in the gallery.

Sep 22, 2023

My arm is far to heavy and I will need to redesign

Sep 7, 2023

Today I finally got the arm working! I Was wrestling the PCA controller to get the arm to move and I figured it out :)

Aug 24, 2023

I am back from summer break, and I am ready to continue my project!

May 11, 2023

Wow, that was a long break, just kidding, the website decided that this year it didn’t want to be a website. A lot has happened since September. First off, that NAO no longer has a head, it’s all sad and depressing and such but oh well. Ironically, the dead robot is the most valuable piece of data I have. The robot is making people have emotions. Now I am working on a robotic arm. It will have AI-driven Humanoid Emotions. Its name is T.I.M. (or Thinking Imaginative Machine) TIM will help with autism research.

Sep. 27, 2022

It has been a while, but a lot has happened. I discovered an old NAO robot, and have been fixing it up for research on human reactions to AI.

Aug. 30

I have joined the cosmic rays as an engineer. I will work on stepper motors.

Aug. 24

My second day of WISRD. I have decided to work on a project involving creating cheap and interchangeable prosthetics. For now, I am working on a mechanical tentacle arm. this can later be used as a prosthetic.

Aug. 23

My name is Jacob F. Today I joined WISRD. I don’t really know what project I want to join, but I am interested in something that involves engineering!