Скачать или смотреть Judgmental Santa Decides If You’re Naughty or Nice (With a Nerf Gun)

Things used in this project
Hardware components
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
Webcam, Logitech® HD Pro
Ultrasonic Sensor - HC-SR04 (Generic)
Seeed Studio SO-ARM100
Strong servo × 2
Nerf gun
USB speaker

Introduction
When computer vision first came out, I did what any normal person would do and made a life-sized judgmental Santa. It judged whoever/whatever it saw and decided if they were naughty or nice, with playful, thematic dialogue. It was fun, but where was the zazz? Fast forward 2 years, and this version of Santa can actually take action. If Santa deems someone nice, a robot arm reaches into a candy bowl and throws candy at them. If they're naughty, a Nerf gun fires up and unloads on them. ’Tis the season for Nerf and chaos!

The Setup
This runs on a Raspberry Pi with a USB speaker for audio. It uses a webcam for computer vision, grabbing and processing a frame at the right time. An ultrasonic sensor detects when someone walks in front so we're not scanning nonstop. This uses a paid API, so it makes sense (and cents) to avoid running it all the time.

Adding the Nerf Gun
Sometimes the simplest solution is best. I found a Nerf gun that can be powered on and then just fires when the trigger is pulled, instead of needing to be primed after every shot. My first setup used string on the activation and firing triggers and almost worked… until I broke the Nerf gun. So I switched to two strong servos hot-glued onto the shell. After carefully tuning how far they move to avoid damage, it worked perfectly. It’s a ridiculous project, so a slightly ridiculous setup feels right. Bonus detail: the Nerf gun is seated on the stand with a couple of drumsticks. If it works, it works.

Candy-Throwing Robot
I had recently made a candy-throwing robot for Halloween but ended up building a massive box fort instead. This build was the perfect excuse to bring it back as the “nice” reward for Judgmental Santa.

The robot arm is a Seeed Studio SO-ARM100. It's meant to copy a “leader” arm, but here it's running a programmed sequence: reach into the candy bowl, grab candy, wind back, and snap forward while opening its hand to throw. The arm was showing some wear, so I smoothed out the motion path so it wouldn’t fight gravity as much. It doesn’t throw quite as hard now, but it still gets the candy flying.

The little table it’s duct-taped to is part of the original arm setup, and it turned out perfect: a spot for the arm, a spot for the candy bowl, and a natural place to hide the ultrasonic sensor. Mounting the sensor on Santa himself was too distracting.

Code
After the ultrasonic sensor detects someone, a frame from the webcam is sent to the OpenAI Vision API with a long, clear prompt. At the end, the model is told to respond with either “nice” or “naughty,” which keeps things easy to parse. From there:
• If “nice,” a lerobot process runs the arm through its candy-throwing sequence.
• If “naughty,” one servo spins up the Nerf gun and the other pulls the trigger, then both return to their starting positions.

Before any of that happens, Santa talks. The prompt also tells the model to comment on what it sees so it feels like Santa is actually looking at whoever is in frame.

The Result
Combine goofy AI vision, a Nerf gun, and a robot arm and you get surprisingly wholesome Christmas chaos. I rushed to finish this for a big family reunion, and having Judgmental Santa greet everyone was absolutely worth it.

Hope you enjoyed this ridiculous creation. Merry Christmas.

Music: “Till My Head Falls Off”
Artist: They Might Be Giants
Album: Factory Showroom (1996)

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