Nakahama

Haruhi was excited to start working on the jimen tori avi-drone.

It would walk, rather than fly. But realistically!

She had all the audio to sort. She could program matching expression and movement to each vocalization.

Her piles of sketches would slowly take shape.

The room was a disaster of mechanical tools, gears, engineering supplies.

She was focused on her work, so the first prototype jimen tori drone could wander, playing the 'follow me' honk, and guiding the others to the secret place.

But she was findable, if anyone was looking for her.

Haruhi wouldn't be alone for long with the arrival of the tiny Spider. She smiled brightly and bowed.

"Good morning Kakita-sama! Have you had breakfast yet?"

Haruhi looked up from a pile of gears.

"Oh! Susume-san. Good to see you! Ah ... no. I had an idea while I was sleeping and I've been trying to capture it."

"How have you been doing?"

She glanced around, realizing she little to offer. But ... it was a hotel! "I can order us room service if you'd like some snacks and tea. I think I would. Now that it's crossed my mind."

"I'm doing well thank you" Sumiko chuckled as she moved closer "you sound a lot like me, getting so lost in a project and forgetting to eat. Let's quickly order some food for you and we can discuss the plans of what you've already put together. Maybe I can help with that also?"

She smiled.

"I'd love your input. You are so good with computers and a lot of this is just a specific example of programming."

She orders tea and a breakfast spread of fruit, juice, and rice-balls that they can nibble on as they work.

She shows her the schematics and the working prototype. The prototype is currently not much larger than her songbird avi-drones. Definitely much smaller than a jimen tori.

"Here are the points of articulation. This gear turns to open and close the mouth. That's where a lot of the programming with the audio must tie most closely, for a realistic experience. There's also more head turning possible with all that neck. And I haven't needed to do legs that supported weight before and did realistic walking. I was originally tempted to have it hover with the legs dangling, but that won't look right."

Sumiko had moved to sit next to Haruhi as she studied the designs.

"Hmm...well in terms of the legs I actually worked on a bot that was designed to perform simple heimin duties such as presenting and pouring tea so pass me some paper and I can design the legs that will be able to balance well and move in the typical style of the Jimon Tori we saw. The main thing is going to be having a good perception. The worst thing that could happen is catching a rock falling over and not being able to get up. That could put a lot of Jimen Tori together in a vulnerable targetable place. The body design so far doesn't look difficult to support however."

"Oh that sounds very helpful. I'd love to see your schematics."

"You are right. If it is to operate an independent circuit, it needs to be able to perceive its environment in a way the choreography drones don't need to."

"Hmm... it needs to be able to ... to self-pilot. Have you done programming of that kind?"

"The bot was self piloting, I didn't design or create it but I spent a few hours going through the code and I remember how it ran so it won't take me long to design a quick code to follow an exact path" Sumiko smiled as she moved to the spare paper, drawing a very basic design for the legs and making notes alongside them.

"Hmm, I just thought. Perhaps instead of moving legs they could have small wheels in them? That'll make ease of being able to spot and move around rocks or other objects. I'd need access to a computer to being coding though."

"Yasuki Reina-sama will let us use her computer."

"I think we can get a prototype ready to start its route and gather up the jimen tori by tomorrow if we work hard at it!"

"I'm invested" Sumiko said with a nod "and have very little plans for today. I can make notes then once Yasuki-sama is free we can make our way to her computers to make the code and run some practice test runs. Did Agasha-sama provide you with the video of the Jimen Tori calls or just sound?"

"We have both. To use the sound recording, but also to match the mouth movements and facial expression. As much as we can."

There was a smile.

"You read my mind. Need to make sure the programming loops for the sound have the right amount of gaps between. It'd be interesting to see if there is a clear pattern or if there's some randomness that needs to be worked in, animals have plenty of repeatable mannerisms but variance exists in all creatures in some way."

She paused in her drawing, sitting back slightly.

"I think we could potentially design something in the head, like a spring or something, so that if it falls over and the program detects it and tries to push itself back onto the wheels. Am I thinking too complex though? Maybe we can examine the video more to get a better idea of the ground."