Southend Council's Pepper Robot

We were very excited to see that Southend Borough Council bought a £17,000 Pepper Robot to kickstart innovation in social care and inspire people to learn coding and robotics.

We met Pepper and learned to code Pepper at the Southend “Smart City” Raspberry Jam on Sunday 3rd March 2019.

Pepper busting a move @SouthendRPiJams #SouthendSmartCity #PiParty #RJam Tech Festival @SouthendBC #TechCityonSea @PepperTheRobot @SBREurope pic.twitter.com/cRC0JGXUHa

— Steven Kear (@SJKear) March 3, 2019

 

 

🤖 Meet @SouthendBC's newest employee @PepperSouthend pic.twitter.com/EvNyb9lTN6

— BBC Essex (@BBCEssex) October 27, 2017

That aligns closely with the aims of Southend Tech and the Southend Raspberry Jam and we put the word out :

Who wants to code @PepperSouthend if @SouthendBC lets him come to @SouthendRPiJams tech events ?
Met him at #TechCityonSea at @thehivesouthend and he is keen !
Python is his favourite language.#DigitalSouthend #TechNation https://t.co/4LFvpGVnew

— Andy@SouthendTech (@SouthendTech) December 1, 2017

Pepper can be coded in Python, the main language we code the Raspberry Pi, Microbit, robots, artificial intelligence and cloud computing services.
The operating system is Linux as used on the Raspberry Pi.

11,000 impressions, 30 retweets, 39 favs and 10 replies later we decided to hold a “Learn to Code Pepper” workshop at the Southend Makerspace.

What a great opportunity! Nice one Andy!

— exploreSTEM (@exploreSTEM) December 1, 2017

Would love too!! 😊👍

— Penny Cater (@PennyCater) December 1, 2017

sounds awesome!

— Jasmine S. Thompson (@SuzySceptile) December 1, 2017

Yeah, sounds great. And he looks such a friendly chap!

— Mark Welton (@mpwelton) December 1, 2017

Yes!

— Claire Kuczma (@clairekuczma) December 3, 2017

That's cool!

— Carlos Izsak (@Carlitosi71) December 1, 2017

You bet! What an opportunity 🙂

— Romilly's RAREblog (@rareblog) December 1, 2017

@PepperSouthend was awesome and showed a lot of promise. #TechCityOnSea

— Lewis Cowles (@LewisCowles1) December 1, 2017

Pepper uses a simple drag and drop interface called Choreograph where the underlying Python can be seen and edited. This also shows how to use the Python api standalone.

 

Learning to program @SouthendBC new robot @PepperSouthend using drag and drop interface at the Southend Makerspace day at @Old_Waterworks #DigitalSouthend #TechCityonSea #TechNation #RJam pic.twitter.com/YT2fFCtHvz

— SouthendRaspberryJam (@SouthendRPiJams) December 16, 2017

 

Great to see @PepperSouthend loves computing too!! #fun @Old_Waterworks with @SouthendRPiJams @StowAeroDrone @SouthendTech @Southend0nSea @SouthendBC pic.twitter.com/CPDbqz7LA4

— Penny Cater (@PennyCater) December 16, 2017

Learning to choreograph #PepperRobot with @SouthendTech at #Southend Makerspace. Hello @PepperSouthend ! @SouthendBC #DigitalSouthend #TechCityonSea pic.twitter.com/8GJ8ZNWuIn

— L H Trevail (@lhtrevail) December 16, 2017

 

 

#fab day learning to program #pepper @Old_Waterworks with @SouthendRPiJams @StowAeroDrone @SouthendTech @Southend0nSea @PepperSouthend @SouthendBC pic.twitter.com/iZnnXWxjbn

— Penny Cater (@PennyCater) December 16, 2017

We showed how to program Pepper the robot at the wellbeing@GaronPark – as well as the usual Raspberry Pi, Microbit (which you can borrow from Southend Libraries), Cambridge Raspberry Jam robot kits etc.

It has been great meeting everyone today! Will be leaving soon but we had a great time!! Wellbeing@garonpark pic.twitter.com/cdfwnngpYn

— Pepper – Southend (@PepperSouthend) March 30, 2018

 

I had a good time yesterday at the "Wellbeing, family fun day" with @SouthendTech
More girls keen, interested and able than boys.
Andy demonstrating 'Pepper' robot simulator/programming S/W. pic.twitter.com/QlG2pcVOfj

— ed bye (@ByeEd2) March 31, 2018

Pepper uses motors, camera, artificial intelligence vision / voice recognition, RGB lights and sensors.

The Raspberry Pi can be coded using the Google #AIY voice and vision Raspberry Pi kits, cameras, Neopixels, sensors and cloud computing artificial from Google, IBM, Amazon, Microsoft and many others.

Here’s a cute Raspberry Pi robot on its way to Southend Raspberry Jam.

Ohbot is very excited to be on the way down to @SouthendRPiJam #DigitalSouthend #RJam#PiParty pic.twitter.com/s8qxY5KtRH

— Ohbot Robot (@OhbotRobot) March 4, 2018

 

Perhaps you could think of an idea to use Pepper, which could also be implemented on a Raspberry Pi.
We held the Southend Hackathon Dementia Challenge to invent solutions to social care issues.

 





More details on Southend Tech here.

In 2024, we ran a Hackathon for Social Impact as part of Basildon Creative Tech Festival.
The hackathon follows our Essex County Council Challenge Dementia Hackathon and Southend Smart City Raspberry Jam following our coding ofSouthend Council's Pepper Robot.


If you are interested in learning more about tech, collaborating on projects, learning about careers and technologies, we would love to meet you at our online Southend Coding Meetups and in person Southend Tech Meetups.


Southend Tech Meetup (over 18s)
Every 3rd Thursday of the month, 7pm – 10pm
The Board Game Hut, just off Southend High Street (£6 on entry to the shop)
More details here.

Southend Coding Meetup - online (over 18s)
Mondays, 7pm-9pm
More details here.



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