GitHub shows how to use GitHub Copilot to help write code for a robot dog project, generating a custom servo “greeting” sequence that triggers when a Raspberry Pi 5 camera detects a human face.

Giving a robot dog a personality using GitHub Copilot

In this video, GitHub experiments with GitHub Copilot to see how well it can help program a robot dog to behave more like a real pup.

What the project does

• A Raspberry Pi 5 camera performs face detection.
• When a human face is detected, a script triggers a custom greeting sequence.
• The greeting sequence is made up of servo movements designed to look “adorable and lifelike”.

How Copilot is used

• The team provides Copilot with a file containing example servo movements.
• Copilot is then asked to generate a new sequence of movements based on those examples.
• The generated logic is tested to see if the resulting behavior looks realistic.

Files referenced

• greet.py
  • The script reviewed in the video that contains the greeting logic and triggering behavior.
• servos.md
  • A reference file containing example servo movements used as input/context for Copilot.

Timeline (from the video description)

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 01:33 – Enable face detection
• 02:07 – Review the greet.py script
• 03:20 – Review the servos.md file
• 03:51 – Ask GitHub Copilot to create a sequence of movements
• 05:07 – Test GitHub Copilot's logic
• 05:40 – Outro

Links

• YouTube: https://gh.io/subgithub
• Blog: https://github.blog
• X: https://twitter.com/github
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/github
• Insider newsletter: https://resources.github.com/newsletter/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/github
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@github
• GitHub: https://github.com

About GitHub (from the description)

GitHub is a platform where developers create, share, and ship software.