We would like to congratulate Yijie (Ink) Gao, who recently joined WSA as a PhD student, on her win for the MLH Best Hardware Hack prize in the February 2021 Highfield Hack competition.
Ink and her Digi-Key collaborators built Gua, a “viable monster robot living in the garbage dump of the wasteland era”, a kind of robotic pet who can interact with humans whilst demonstrating innate characteristics. Gua aims to address the benefits of pet ownership for humans, articulating the qualities and behaviours of a real-life pet.
Ink’s description of this fantastic and thoughtful project can be found here, including the original inspiration as well as the outcomes of the team’s creativity.