Ballbot
// interactive demo
Move your mouse over the bot. It tracks you, leans toward your cursor, and wobbles when you move fast — the same character behavior principles driving the real Ballbot build.
// overview
A self-balancing robot built on an inverted pendulum architecture, designed to exhibit character-driven social behaviors inspired by Disney's approach to animatronics. The system uses a cascaded PID control loop running on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin for real-time balance, while a higher-level behavior layer orchestrates social gestures, gaze tracking, and emotional responses. The goal is to create a robot that doesn't just balance — it feels alive.
// highlights
Sub-10ms PID loop on Jetson Orin with real-time IMU fusion
ROS2 node architecture for modular sensor and actuator control
Character behavior layer with state machines for social gestures
Integration path for multimodal perception research