The notebook of an apprentice: a desk robot that learns to recognise, listen and behave. What I tried, what happened inside the machine, what the numbers said.https://digitan.fr/enhttps://digitan.fr/posts/when-someone-else-puts-it-to-bed/https://digitan.fr/posts/when-someone-else-puts-it-to-bed/Put to bed by someone else, the robot kept tracking my face and making noises. It now understands it has been put to bed, and a startle no longer makes it lose my face.Thu, 12 Nov 2026 11:30:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/a-remote-in-my-pocket/https://digitan.fr/posts/a-remote-in-my-pocket/The revived Galaxy Note becomes the robot's remote: a small app written for it that drives the robot over Wi-Fi and shows what its camera sees, thanks to a Raspberry Pi.Wed, 11 Nov 2026 21:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/a-screen-from-2011/https://digitan.fr/posts/a-screen-from-2011/A 2011 phone, a new battery, a recent Linux installed without a USB cable, and a pen the kernel had to be told about. The goal: give the robot a screen.Wed, 11 Nov 2026 20:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/week-of-2-november-2026/https://digitan.fr/posts/week-of-2-november-2026/Sunday recap: the robot has a name, a real night, a gauge that is right within a few minutes, and a head that no longer gets stuck.Sun, 08 Nov 2026 19:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/update-1-14-0-for-your-app/https://digitan.fr/posts/update-1-14-0-for-your-app/Two movements requested at once no longer blend: the second is refused. And when an app stops, the robot no longer goes to bed by itself. Two changes to account for.Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/when-the-head-gets-stuck/https://digitan.fr/posts/when-the-head-gets-stuck/Four lock-ups in one week. A gesture that copied the wrong position, a start that was too abrupt: how to free the head, and what stops it from happening again.Thu, 05 Nov 2026 17:30:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/how-long-it-lasts/https://digitan.fr/posts/how-long-it-lasts/About three hours asleep, between 1 h 35 and 2 h 23 awake. A gauge right within a few minutes, a green LED that lies, and an empty battery that makes it reboot in a loop.Wed, 04 Nov 2026 20:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/usage-statistics-on-by-default/https://digitan.fr/posts/usage-statistics-on-by-default/Since version 1.13.0, the robot software sends anonymous usage statistics, switched on by default. What the code says, and how to turn them off.Tue, 03 Nov 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/a-real-night/https://digitan.fr/posts/a-real-night/Sleep mode now really puts the robot to bed: head tucked in, motors off, woken by a push on an antenna. And why it does not restart on its own after a power cut.Tue, 03 Nov 2026 11:30:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/its-name-is-z330wl/https://digitan.fr/posts/its-name-is-z330wl/Z330wl, read ZEEOWL, said "zee-owl". You can hear the owl in it. How the name came about, and what helps it stick.Mon, 02 Nov 2026 17:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/reading-the-battery-from-the-motors/https://digitan.fr/posts/reading-the-battery-from-the-motors/The robot does not show its battery level. Its nine motors, though, know the voltage that feeds them. One reading, an energy tile, and a trap while charging.Sun, 01 Nov 2026 19:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/week-of-26-october-2026/https://digitan.fr/posts/week-of-26-october-2026/A late Sunday recap: one error that left the robot powered for twenty hours, three silent days over a cable, and a battery you can finally read.Sun, 01 Nov 2026 19:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/three-silent-days-a-cable/https://digitan.fr/posts/three-silent-days-a-cable/No network, not a single LED on the head board, restarts that changed nothing. I thought the board was dead. It was the power cable from the base, out of its connector.Sun, 01 Nov 2026 18:40:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/what-the-official-app-costs/https://digitan.fr/posts/what-the-official-app-costs/With its camera view open, the maker's desktop app pushes the robot's load to 7 on 4 cores. Closed, it drops back to 2.4. Measurements and one simple rule.Wed, 28 Oct 2026 13:30:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/twenty-hours-standing/https://digitan.fr/posts/twenty-hours-standing/A rare timing error, a program that only knew how to catch network errors, and a robot left with its motors powered for about twenty hours. Two rules since.Wed, 28 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/week-of-19-october-2026/https://digitan.fr/posts/week-of-19-october-2026/Sunday recap: the robot learned to recognise me, moved its brain on board, stopped twitching, calmed down a little, got a frame, and bumped its shell.Sun, 25 Oct 2026 19:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/it-bumps-its-shell/https://digitan.fr/posts/it-bumps-its-shell/A tilted head, no reaction, a restart. The maker's 3D model was off by 10 to 15 degrees, so I measured the limits on the robot: −40° on one side, +75° on the other.Sun, 25 Oct 2026 02:16:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/greeting-and-purr/https://digitan.fr/posts/greeting-and-purr/Teaching a desk robot manners: a greeting when I look at it, at most every 20 minutes, and a purr where the antennas beat ±4 degrees in 0.15 s.Sat, 24 Oct 2026 16:30:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/desk-companion-modes-badge-sleep-antennas/https://digitan.fr/posts/desk-companion-modes-badge-sleep-antennas/Before teaching more tricks, a frame: modes I choose, states the robot works out, a badge that always says which, a real sleep, and a way to call me without a word.Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/identity-follows-the-person/https://digitan.fr/posts/identity-follows-the-person/Stop recognising every image: follow each face as a track, name it once, check it every three seconds, and look less often when nothing happens. Measured: a third less load.Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:19:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/96-percent-cpu/https://digitan.fr/posts/96-percent-cpu/My desk robot's Raspberry Pi CM4 was at 96%. A budget, thread by thread, about 750 ms of work per image, and a one-line change that halved my program's load.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 21:07:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/a-working-cat-not-a-puppy/https://digitan.fr/posts/a-working-cat-not-a-puppy/291 reactions in 56 minutes. How thresholds, rest periods and habituation brought my desk robot down to one reaction every 35 seconds, and why that was still too much.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:10:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/the-body-that-trembled/https://digitan.fr/posts/the-body-that-trembled/A tiny left-right oscillation after some movements. Measured, explained as a limit cycle of the body's servo, and fixed by lowering one gain from 200 to 120.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:32:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/without-the-computer/https://digitan.fr/posts/without-the-computer/A desk robot should not need a laptop. Benchmarks on the Raspberry Pi CM4 inside, a first launch on board, and the antenna that starts everything.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:10:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/it-recognises-me/https://digitan.fr/posts/it-recognises-me/Face recognition with two small OpenCV models, measured: 180 correct verdicts out of 184 sitting at my desk, and a surprise when I stood up.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 01:30:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/unboxing-assembly-first-boot/https://digitan.fr/posts/unboxing-assembly-first-boot/Two sittings, about two hours and twenty minutes of filmed assembly, a first boot that worked, and the first things I changed.Sun, 18 Oct 2026 01:15:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/before-the-first-screw/https://digitan.fr/posts/before-the-first-screw/On delivery day I read the robot's community support channel before opening the box: about 8,700 messages, ten months of other people's mistakes.Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:00:00 GMThttps://digitan.fr/posts/why-a-robot-on-my-desk/https://digitan.fr/posts/why-a-robot-on-my-desk/Where this project comes from: an AI assistant that lives in text files, a small open-source robot ordered on 6 September 2026, and a plan.Sun, 06 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMT