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Zero Series

GLaDOS

Build a robotic arm that sounds and acts like GLaDOS — ending as your house assistant
99Chapters available
10Volumes available
0Volumes planned
0/99Chapters read
—Day streak
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01
VOLUME 01 · YOU ARE HERE
Her Voice
From a silent laptop to a machine that speaks as GLaDOS and answers back

A complete local voice pipeline: she speaks in her own cloned voice, hears you through your microphone, and answers from a model running on your hardware.

you finish with → A local voice loop with mic input and GLaDOS speech
0 of 10 read
01 Project setupuv, a lock file, and a project layout declared as data 02 The Python She Runs OnFunctions that return, types that catch mistakes, data that stays data 03 Her First WordsPiper turns text into int16 samples; you assemble them into sound 04 EarsCapturing your microphone into a WAV you can prove is good 05 Hearing YouWhisper runs locally and turns your WAV into text she can reason about 06 Voice recordingsA voice model is only as good as the dataset behind it 07 Voice cloningF5-TTS speaks new text using an authorized reference recording 08 A Brain She OwnsA local model through Ollama: pulled once, prompted forever, no meter running 09 Acting Like GLaDOSPersonality is data: a system prompt, example lines, and rules the model follows 10 Speech conversation loopMic to text to brain to her voice, timed at every seam
02
VOLUME 02 · YOU ARE HERE
Her Mind
Memory, wake words, events, and decisions she makes on her own

She remembers you between power cycles, wakes to her name, and acts on rules and habits instead of waiting to be asked.

you finish with → An assistant with persistent memory, a wake word, and an automation engine
0 of 10 read
11 A Memory That SurvivesSQLite gives her facts and summaries that outlive the power button 12 Personality, ComposedA base self, a passing mood, a tone — assembled at call time 13 Her Own NameA wake word, behind a silence gate that keeps Whisper asleep 14 What She Brings Into the RoomA context engine: the right memories, injected at the one boundary that matters 15 An Event BusModules that shout into the void; whoever cares answers 16 Calling for HelpSeverity levels, a durable log, escalation controlled by data 17 Rules, Not BranchesAn automation engine: triggers as data, handlers in a registry 18 Habits Are CountsPrediction without machine learning: strftime, GROUP BY, a suggestion 19 Acting UnaskedA scheduler that ticks, sleeps, and fires exactly once per slot 20 A Committee of SpecialistsSmall agents, one router, and a registry that decides who answers
03
VOLUME 03 · YOU ARE HERE
Her Craft
Prosody, emotional intelligence, and engineering discipline

Her speech stops sounding read-aloud, she reacts to how you say things, and the project gains the debugging and measurement habits a growing system needs.

you finish with → A more convincing GLaDOS, and the tooling to keep improving her honestly
0 of 10 read
21 Curating Her Own ExamplesA rated interaction log that feeds her own best answers back as examples 22 Her PreferencesA JSON config where new defaults never break an old save file 23 Speaking CleanlyA regex pipeline that keeps ellipses and stray markdown from mangling her voice 24 Reading the RoomA finite-state machine that shifts her mood with tone and lets it fade 25 The Lab NotebookEvery tuning change as a dataclass with a hypothesis fixed before you see the result 26 A Plan You Can QueryGoals as structured data instead of a notes file no one can filter 27 Body simulatorOne config dict and one function signature that a real driver can swap in later 28 Timing the PipelineA decorator that logs every stage's duration and never swallows an error 29 Sensors With a Memory LimitA bounded JSON log that keeps the last N readings and nothing older 30 A Protocol of Her OwnFraming turns a raw TCP stream into messages her modules can trust
04
VOLUME 04 · YOU ARE HERE
One System
Architecture, composition, and the first wire to another machine

The pile of working scripts becomes one designed system with a startup that validates itself — and a message protocol to the microcontroller her body will use.

you finish with → A composed, validated GLaDOS stack talking to an ESP32
0 of 10 read
31 The Component RegistryA typed component registry that replaces scattered constants with one source of truth 32 Core integrationGladOSCore takes her listener, her brain, and her voice as arguments instead of building them itself 33 The Startup Health CheckA probe for every subsystem that fails loud at second zero instead of quiet at second thirty 34 Proving the Config Before the Loop StartsA validator that checks file paths and numeric ranges before a single frame of audio is recorded 35 Action parsingExtracting a clean command from messy LLM text before the registry ever sees it 36 Watching the System Over TimeA rolling metrics log built on the same bounded-history trick as her sensors 37 A Memory She Can SearchFacts ranked by confidence instead of a list she has to scan line by line 38 Proving the Tuning Instead of Guessing ItA parameter sweep that stamps every configuration to a timeline you can compare next month 39 A Roadmap That Answers BackMilestones tied to lesson ranges so progress is something you compute, not something you remember 40 The First Wire to Another MachineA twelve-byte header of magic bytes, length, and checksum turns a socket into a message channel
05
VOLUME 05 · YOU ARE HERE
Alive on the Bench
Watchdogs, contracts, moods, and hardware that answers back

She survives her own failures, her reactions live in data, and real sensors and actuators join the loop under test.

you finish with → A resilient assistant wired to first hardware, with a test harness that proves it
0 of 10 read
41 The WatchdogA background thread that proves the pipeline is still alive one heartbeat at a time 42 The First Hardware TestsRecording expected and actual values so a failing servo explains itself 43 Testing the SeamsCatching failures in the handoff between modules instead of inside them 44 Provider contractsAbstract base classes that refuse to build a component missing a method 45 The Test HarnessWrapping a test function to time it and catch its failure as data 46 Behaviors as DataPriority-sorted reactions replace an if/elif tower that only grows 47 A Mood With a DialOne guarded method turns mood into a validated state with an LED color 48 Priority Over ArrivalA queue that lets urgency decide dispatch order, not who arrived first 49 A Window Into Her VitalsA fixed-size ring buffer keeps the latency average honest 50 The Research ArchiveA self-timestamping note store you can search by title, body, or tag
06
VOLUME 06 · YOU ARE HERE
Ready for the House
Safety, drivers, deployment, and the discipline of shipping

A permission system between her mouth and your shell, hardware behind swappable drivers, and the whole stack running as a service you can hand to someone else.

you finish with → A deployed, documented, sign-off-tested assistant
0 of 12 read
51 The Scoring FunctionWeighted keyword criteria rank engineering ideas instead of a meeting vote 52 Deny by DefaultA blocked-text filter and a permission table gate every action before it runs 53 The Device ContractOne abstract base and a shared safe_read() give every driver the same failure behavior 54 Configuration You RegenerateA systemd unit file generated from the environment instead of typed by hand 55 The Wiring ManifestStructured connection records that catch a bad voltage before you touch a wire 56 Documentation as DataA command registry renders into the manual, the JSON feed, and the help text 57 The Architecture Is a GraphDepth-first search catches a circular dependency a diagram would miss 58 Integration checksIntegration checks default to failed until an assertion proves the seam holds 59 Sign-Off Is a NumberEight measurable criteria decide acceptance, fixed before anything is measured 60 Tuning by FeedbackA preference profile absorbs feedback so the system prompt is generated, not hand-edited 61 Measure the TailA rolling p95 per component exposes the slow calls an average hides 62 The Record of the BuildA serialized build summary closes the software arc before the body begins
07
VOLUME 07 · YOU ARE HERE
The Body
Printed shell, servos, eye, arm, and power that holds under load

The physical GLaDOS: printed parts, a moving eye with a light ring, a robotic arm, microphones and a speaker, all calibrated and tested as one machine.

you finish with → The assembled body, calibrated, passing a 90-second full-system test
0 of 12 read
63 Printing the ShellA material spec table and a validator that blocks a bad slicer setting before the print starts 64 Servo BasicsConverting degrees into the pulse width a servo actually understands 65 Eye MechanismEasing two servos through a single clamped choke point so the gaze looks alive 66 LED Ring ControlDriving twenty-four addressable pixels over one data wire without corrupting the color 67 Microphone ArrayResolving a microphone by name so a reboot can never point the pipeline at a speaker 68 Speaker and AmplifierThe array dimensions and sample rate that decide whether a sound plays at all 69 Robotic Arm AssemblyOne clamped mapping across four joints, with a home sequence that folds in before it swings 70 Power DistributionReading a battery through an ADC instead of guessing at a brownout 71 Hardware IntegrationGrouping every claimed pin by number so a conflict is just a count 72 Physical AssemblyA checklist that saves its own progress after every step 73 Hardware CalibrationMeasuring each servo's real limit instead of trusting the datasheet 74 Full System TestSix isolated checks and a 90-second verdict before the software stack goes on
08
VOLUME 08 · YOU ARE HERE
The Jetson Brain
Moving her onto hardware that can hold a bigger mind

Flash, verify and productionize a Jetson Orin Nano, migrate the whole stack onto it, and measure what the GPU buys her voice and her brain.

you finish with → GLaDOS running standalone on a Jetson, faster than she ever was on the bench
0 of 10 read
75 The Jetson Orin Nano SuperA different machine than the Raspberry Pi it replaces 76 Flashing JetPackA verification script that proves what actually landed on the board 77 First Boot and Remote AccessLeaving the monitor behind for good 78 CUDA and GPU VerificationA GPU that works and a compiler still off the PATH 79 Ollama on JetsonMeasuring GPU acceleration instead of trusting the install log 80 Performance BenchmarksTurning five noisy runs into one number you can compare later 81 GPIO on the JetsonSame header, different chip: revalidating the Volume 7 pin map 82 Migrating the GLaDOS StackResolve board settings and pass them to the voice providers 83 Running Larger ModelsChoosing model size by tokens per second, not parameter count 84 Jetson Production SetupThe box boots and stays up without you
09
VOLUME 09 · YOU ARE HERE
Sharper Senses
Retrieval, vision, streaming speech, and a house to run

She searches her own knowledge, sees the room, starts speaking before the model finishes thinking, and takes over the smart home.

you finish with → A house assistant: RAG, camera vision, streaming voice, device control
0 of 9 read
85 Retrieval by MeaningEmbeddings replace keyword matching as the way GLaDOS finds a fact 86 A Frame Becomes a SentenceBase64 is the adapter between a webcam frame and a vision model's JSON request 87 The Speaker Decides When to StopA 30-millisecond frame classifier replaces the fixed recording window 88 Speaking While She ThinksSentence boundaries let synthesis start before generation finishes 89 An Endpoint Is a FunctionFlask exposes GLaDOS's speech and mind to every device on the network 90 A Broker Between Every DeviceMQTT topics let sensors and GLaDOS react without addressing each other directly 91 One Coordinator, Many SpecialistsScored keyword routing dispatches to a team of agents instead of one prompt 92 A Monitor That Outlives StartupEvery subsystem check returns failure as data instead of raising it 93 A Reference That Prints ItselfEvery configuration key and command in one executable file, not a README that goes stale
10
VOLUME 10 · YOU ARE HERE
Reaching Out
Kinematics, depth, a dashboard, and a day in her life

Demonstrate supervised arm reaches to manually supplied, calibrated coordinates, compare camera-relative depth estimates, measure vocal cues, and review a day of operation. Camera-to-arm targeting remains outside this build.

you finish with → GLaDOS complete: arm, senses, dashboard, and a life of her own
0 of 6 read
94 Pointing the Arm at a TargetLaw of cosines and two atan2 calls turn a target coordinate into shoulder and elbow angles 95 Judging Distance From One CameraA single frame yields a per-pixel depth ranking without a second lens or a calibration rig 96 Watching Every Subsystem at OnceOne open connection lets the browser repaint health status the moment it changes 97 Hearing Tone, Not Just WordsReading loudness and pitch straight from the audio labels a voice's tone without training a model 98 Remembering Across Sessions Without Replaying ThemAn append-only interaction log and a periodic Ollama summary keep prompt overhead constant as days of use accumulate 99 Full-day service runShe wakes on her own schedule, judges what she senses, then keeps running when a subsystem fails partway through the day