Zoobotica

🧠 Inspiration

We were inspired by nature’s engineering genius — the way animals have evolved to solve complex problems through unique adaptations. From the gecko’s sticky feet to the mimic octopus’s camouflage, biology holds blueprints for innovations we haven’t even imagined yet. We wanted to create a tool that brings this bio-inspired brilliance into the hands of roboticists, makers, and dreamers. 🌿🤖

🚀 What it does

Zoobotica is an AI-powered design assistant that helps users build innovative robots inspired by animal traits.
You describe your robot’s desired capabilities — like speed, flexibility, vision, or underwater movement — and Zoobotica recommends biological traits and animals to mimic, complete with:

• 🐾 A blueprint-style visual showing which parts of the robot are inspired by which animals
  
• 💬 A chatbot assistant that explains the choices and answers your questions
  
• 🧩 A visual builder (WIP) where you can assemble and iterate on designs

Think of it as a futuristic, gamified design lab where nature meets robotics!

🛠️ How we built it

We used:

• Gemini AI to analyze user input and generate animal-inspired design suggestions
• Stable Diffusion Model to create blueprint-style visualizations of robots inspired by animal traits
• Custom logic to match traits (e.g., “needs to grip walls”) to biological solutions (e.g., “gecko feet”)
  
• A blueprint generator that visualizes parts of the robot with labeled animal traits
  
• A sleek frontend UI inspired by Tony Stark’s lab — simple for now, but built to expand
  
• Python for the backend and AI logic
  
• Typescript for the interactive web experience

🧗 Challenges we ran into

• Mapping abstract user requirements (e.g., “needs to fly fast”) to relevant animal traits was complex 🌀
  
• Creating meaningful visual outputs that were both accurate and understandable
  
• Balancing between a fun experience and technical usefulness
  
• Time constraints! So many cool features had to be trimmed or simplified for the MVP ⏳

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Created a working prototype that already generates insightful, creative robot ideas 🔧✨
  
• Built a system that connects biology and robotics in a fresh, engaging way
  
• Got feedback from peers who said Zoobotica gave them ideas they would’ve never thought of
  
• Made science feel a little more like science fiction 🤩

📚 What we learned

• Nature is the best engineer — and there's so much to learn from it
  
• Building an AI design tool means thinking like both a scientist and an artist
  
• The power of visual storytelling in helping people understand complex ideas
  
• How to build fast, think creatively, and still have fun during the process 🎨⚙️

🌍 What’s next for Zoobotica

• Add a drag-and-drop 3D visual builder to let users assemble their dream robots
  
• Train a custom model to suggest animals based on more nuanced robot specs
  
• Partner with educators to turn Zoobotica into a STEM learning tool
  
• Expand into a full platform for robotics R&D, creativity, and experimentation
  
• Ultimately, we want Zoobotica to be the go-to lab assistant for the next generation of bio-inspired engineers 🧬🤖🌟

Built With

• css
• gemini
• next.js
• python
• tsx