Flow x402 Cheerbot

Here's a Q&A:

[ ] Technicality: How complex is the problem you're addressing, and how sophisticated is your solution?

Integrating Ethereum into robots to monetize them as vending machines is a very complex problem. Our solution is sophisticated because it is a minimum viable robot vending machine starting point that enables us to apply simple-made-easy extensible philosophy.

Compare ufb.gg. Though they are our friends and collaborators, their robots cost $20,000 minimum whereas our robots can create spectacle revenue with GPIO board-stackable $15 Raspberry Pis and under $300 3D printers that are already mass produced and distributed worldwide.

Our secret sauce to achieve simple-made-easy robot vending machines is to focus on blockchain primitives combined with retail-designed DIY hardware rather than on advanced hardware design. For instance, draft ERC-7827 is a powerful primitive we are focused on iterating to perfection. Of course, the sophistication of a standard like ERC-7827 is minimalism, which can sometimes be confused with laziness.

[ ] Originality: Is your project introducing a new idea or creatively solving an existing problem?

Cheerbot itself is quite original. The idea of teaching people how to run their own server (not just client; so we can give too instead of only consume) though a family weekend DIY project that's also a collectable desktop toy robot that spreads cheer, teaches people proximate locus of control and offers a livestream revenue source sans intermediaries (who take as much as 40% commission).

However, Cheerbot.org has been around as a public good since the 14" ETHBOT version from Gitcoin Comics was on display at the first Schelling Point at EthDenver 2021. So, as far as this hackathon goes, we can't rely on that originality.

The originality we can rely on for this hackathon is that we originally envisioned that Grant For The Web and Webmonetization.org would succeed at deploying a solution for W3C's 402 placeholder, but that didn't happen, and this hackathon is the first opportunity we have to create the x402 product Base has developed as a solution for W3C's 402 placeholder.

Draft ERC-7827 was developed at MegaZu last year, so we can't rely on its originality of the idea of it for this hackathon either. However, this hackathon has given us the opportunity to move ERC-7827 one big step towards having fully-functional expressions deployed onchain. In other words, our originality here relies on copyright not patent. We're honored to have Flow the chain we've deployed on for this historical step in 7827 given Flow's groundbreaking Ethereum history pioneering Cryptokitties (and we swear, 7827 has nothing to do with artificial life genetic theory ;).

Similarly for OpenSea's MCP, we thought about what might be possible in the past, but could only rely on relatively static curated pixelart NFT collections. Now, we can add now collections automatically through the MCP.

[ ] Practicality: How complete and functional is your project? Could it be used by its target audience today?

Yes, Cheerbots have been seen with artists on various livestreams already and on the Devcon music stage celebrating "Open Source Orchestra at Devcon" POAP holders by ticking their ENS across the bot's screen.

However, because a 402 solution has yet to become adopted, Cheerbots have not been able to monetize as intended. x402 now offers us the opportunity to finally rely on a 402 solution and create a flywheel for the bot today!

[ ] Usability (UI/UX/DX): How intuitive is your project? Have you made it easy for users to interact with your solution?

We have focused on the minimum viable and retail friendly solution. That is a good starting point, but it will take more work for our project to become easy to interact with for everyone. However, one of our hardware design principles is that when a hardware technology is easy to interact with, then it is something we can put into our stack. Instead, we put our energy into getting the web3 protocols onto a retail-friendly stage.

[ ] WOW Factor: Does your project leave a lasting impression? This is the catch-all for anything unique or impressive that may not fit into the other categories.

Yes. There is nothing like, with a x402 payment, interacting with your favorite livestreamer with a robot in their house. Think about how enjoyable the tipping experiences enjoyed on Twitch, YouTube and beyond are, and then multiply that by x10!

Deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Pz7nT0SiSpMvZgW97XvJWr0-rRYePS1/view?usp=sharing

Technologies we brought are: 3D printers now so cheap we can buy them from Amazon and send to ETHGlobal events, Raspberry Pi Single Board Computers with GPIO open source layout. Those technologies together, with GNU Screen + Node.js as the RELP, make a Cheerbot platform!

One of the great things about Cheerbots is that they can function as switchboards for multiple APIs, RPCs, MCPs, Bash, Python, etc. This will be especially true when we incorporate hierarchical script-database technologies in our bots (sneak peak on the secure client-side in https://raw2.seadn.io/polygon/0xc6a81ff731dcb0f75bf6d8526fc660939a5f8241/911810aa17b5ee449681ab55a316c8/b1911810aa17b5ee449681ab55a316c8.html's console; see also seedtreedb.com).

So, we leaned into this Cheerbot being of service as a switchboard by using x402 for payment but Flow for the source-of-truth JSON that the Cheerbot relies on for immutable and publicly verifiable sudo commands.