Building a robot with MobAI

I hope this letter finds you well and that you are enjoying the summer season. I am delighted to share some highlights from our summer activities at WikiAgile. We recently started a team project to test our skills in building a Robot called the Sunfounder PI Sloth and programming it using Python. This experiment allowed us to explore the possibilities of AI in assisting our team with tasks beyond our expertise, using a collaborative team approach called MobAI. 

What is MobAI? MobAI revolutionizes teamwork by integrating artificial intelligence, automating tasks, and empowering teams to collaborate more efficiently.  It is based on the concept of Mob Programming where the entire team collaborates simultaneously on the same problem using one computer. Each member takes turns being the "driver" who types text, code, etc., while another member acts as the "navigator," asking for team inputs and providing guidance to the driver based on the collective ideas. Other team members can search for ideas from AI, Google, etc., on their own computers. The roles of driver and navigator typically rotate every 7 minutes, although no one is obligated to be the driver.

The robot experiment taught us valuable lessons. We successfully brought the robot to life in a shorter timeframe than anticipated. While AI accelerated our learning process significantly and provided insights and suggestions for patching the holes in the robot's instructions or our knowledge of Raspberry Pi and Python, our team's practical professional experience ensured the right decisions were made. Sometimes, AI suggestions missed the mark. Throughout the journey, we had a great time, and we are now ready to share our learnings. 

I will be leading a workshop with my Pi robot at the upcoming Agile Tampere conference on September 12th and will also be speaking on the topic at Projektipäivät on September 17th-18th, 2024. We would be delighted to have you join us for these events.

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