Glossary
Emergency mode
Emergency mode is a special state where all the components of a minipi are disabled, except for her life core, battery and pin
This typically occur to preserve a minipi integrity and prevent her from hurting herself, either because an outside event or from an inner defect
This also allow her to keep a nearly-discharged battery for up to a dozen days
When this happen, all the volatile memory of the minipi is discarded and she will be totally unresponsive
This can be observed when a minipi pin emit a soft red glow
In case of such an event, please only touch the minipi if she is in immediate danger and contact either Pi or another minipi
This scenario usually occur in the following cases:
- A minipi ran out of battery
- A shock forced a minipi to expel her battery
- A system violation was detected by the minipi Pi[OS]
- The minipi pi safety guard was triggered
A minipi is only able to be removed from this state by Pi, and is always followed by a deep maintenance
Pin safety guard
The safety guard is a functionality attached to a minipi pin
When a minipi physical integrity is endagered or when its signal to the central server is too weak (meaning a minipi wandered too far away), the security is triggered
When that happen, the minipi is instantly transported in a receptacle area and her emergency mode is triggered
Deep maintenance
Deep maintance is a process usually done after emergency mode to repair and recalibrate a minipi
It is a time-expensive maneuver that can only be done by Pi, and involve many hardware and software steps to repair structucal and internal defects
A deep maintenance also always involve changing the minipi emergency battery
Soft maintenance
Soft maintenance are a kind of maintance done by minipis in Pi's house
It allow them to recalibrate their software and once started usually take a full day
It contains many steps such as recalibrating their internal clock, defragmenting their memory, testing their various sensors, refilling their coolant, comparing the integrity of their system to a reference database and updating it, etc…
Daily maintenance
Daily maintenance are done each evening in Pi's house
They are usually done in parrallel of their battery charging, it is used by minipi to organize their memories and transfert data from their volatile to permanent memory
Charging pod
A charging pod is a small container where a minipi lie down during their daily maintenance
Each minipi have their own charging pod, they also contains a small compartiment at the bottom that they use to store what they like
Charging stations
Charging stations are little cabins that can be found in the street, they give a rest point to minipi and offer various services like an outlet allowing themselves to charge a bit, a map of the city so lost minipis can find their way back and are also used by various others services provided by minipis such as relay points for the MPDS
When a minipi enter emergency mode, others minipis will often carry her here, offering her a safe place until Pi's arrival
Services
Delivery System
Thank you for considering the MPDS (MiniPi Delivery Service) for your packages
The
MPDS is a service to deliver your letters and parcels while being:
- Free: as a community service, the MPDS is and will remain free for all its citizens, you are however welcome to offer money to provide funds to its infrastructures
- Easy to access: Just let your package at your local minipi station and a minipi will take it when coming by
- Accessible to anyone: Even if you can't use WCC, you can still use the MPDS!
How to I receive packages?
Standard delivery (大Batsu only)
This is the most common type of delivery, packages will arrive at your closest minipi station and are kept there for 2 months before being sent back on the station where they were expedited from
Packages are let inside, please verify the name on a parcel before taking it
Door to door delivery
This service allow you to directly receive your package at your doorstep, delivery are usually a bit slower that way
How do I indicate the destination address?
Mini-pi are very adaptive but use a different language than you and I, for this reason delivery instruction must follow a special format
Standard delivery (大Batsu only)
Please refer to the map on a minipi station to identify which symbols need to be written on the package depending of the destination sector
Door to door delivery (大Batsu only)
Please write down the sector in which the delivery location is, followed by a photo of the house taken from the street
Ebereus delivery
Ebereus packages need to be marked with the corresponding symbols, please refer to a minipi station to know what need to be written
The address itself can be written in plain letters
When will my package be delivered?
Each morning, minipi go around their stations to check for new packages, however some stations are checked less often that the others, when at a station, please check the color of the
MPDS sticker:
- Green: This station is verified every day
- Yellow: This station is verified every week
- Red: This station is verified every months
Once recovered delivery will begin
Mini-pi working only during day time, your package might be stored in another minipi station during the night
Mini-pi must go through many obstacles to ensure your package is delivered, and thus sometimes your package might get lost on the way, if that happens no need to worry! A mini-pi investigation squad will be dispatched to find your package back, if for some reason it still can't be recovered, Pi herself will be dispatched
How can I help?
The
MPDS is able to operate efficiantly thanks to people like you and helping minipi in their tasks is always welcome:
- Minipi sometimes struggle to climb hills with their trolley, when that happens you are welcome to help them to push it
- Minipi will sometimes come to you to attempt to locate specific locations, in that case please don't give complex instructions such as "take the 2nd turn left then right after the crosswalk" but please point them or show them the direction instead
Standard equipement
Mini pi are equiped with a little trolley, allowing them to push any parcel despite their size or weight
History
MPDS is a postal service created by Pi and managed by mini-pi \#43, even through there is no fixed employee, parcel delivery is part of a minipi communitary duty
Technical specifications
These technical specifications are made after extensive observation and while they aim to be as accurate as possible, might contains inacurracies
A minipi is made of 2 main parts:
- The head, which contains the captors, components for memory and decision making along with the ones that define the minipi as a being
- The body, which contains components for energy management and her pin
Head
Life Core
The life core is a component that define a minipi as a being, it acts as a blackbox and little is known about its inner working, apart from the fact that it contains Pi[OS] and that it's charged from Pi's server
As long as this component isn't damaged, a minipi can be repaired
Pi[OS]
Contained inside the life code, Pi[OS] is what define the base of a minipi critical behaviors
The inner instructions are unknown but it contains rules so a minipi can protect herself, Pi and others minipis, along with instructions defining forbidden behaviors
It is the primary layer of security around a minipi lifecore and is completly sealed from the outside, and only accessible to the minipi in a read-only mode, preventing any nefarious attack against it
However, since a minipi ability to judge what is good or bad is based on her reserved memory, her perception can still be altered
Once Pi[OS] detect such a violation, the minipi will enter emergency mode, disabling all her component except for her life core, battery and pin
Decision center
Minipi decision center is a component allowing them to interact with their various others components and sensors to take decisions
Vision
Minipi only have one eye off-centered on the left of their body, making them struggle to see things in 3 dimensions
Their vision spectrum is from 360 to 620nm
Communication
Minipi are able to emit sounds, but are limited to the sound "pi"
They however are able to communicate by applying variation of length and tone, a minipi voice being able to go from 150Hz to 1500Hz
They are able to hear from 30Hz to 40 000Hz
Clock
Minipi have an internal clock, ticking at the same interval for all of them
It is mainly used to syncronise internal systems with each others, but minipis also can use it for various others tasks, like walking in unison
Exhaust pipe
The minipi antenna act as an exhaust pipe, since their heat management is done with a special coolant, bubbles can sometimes be produces and released from there
Memory
Minipi memory work in block of 1024KB, each block can be associated to a specific information
For this reason, minipi are usually better at keeping track of only a few different subjects
Text blocks
Text blocks are chunk of memory optimized to store basic information, they are optimized for very fast access
Image blocks
Image blocks are chunk of memory optimized to store images, information there is usually highly compressed, asking for a minipi more time to access it
Links blocks
Links are a small chunk of memory linking various blocks of image/text memory together
Decisional blocks
Decisional blocks are a special kind of blocks only used by volatile memory
They store information about what the minipi is currently experiencing, working as a system of double buffering, allowing a minipi to store information to her volatile memory while she keeps accumulating new ones from her sensors and sending them to her decision center
Volatile memory
Volatile memory is a kind of memory made from [3] blocks of image, [6] blocks of text and [1] block of links used to temporary store information about their day
Each evening, minipi go back to their charging pod and will enter sleep mode, where their decision center will filter which data are purged and which are stored in permanent memory
If a minipi run out of battery, she risks entering into emergency mode, eliminating all memory stored there
Permanent memory
Minipi permanent memory allow them to keep data between days, that memory however slowly degrade with time and minipi will have to reassess their knowledge to maintain it
It is made of [1] block of link memory, [32] blocks of text memory and [10] blocks of image memory
Text memory is splitted as the following:
-
Core [15]: Basic minipi knowledge, it contains information related to their basic education, such as how to intepret things, how to walk, how to manipulate objects, etc…
This is usually half-filled when a minipi is bornt, but they are free to modify or complement it with their learning
It also contains information on their duty, ways to effectively perform tasks and work alongside others minipis
-
Goals [2]: Where minipi store their current objectives and goals
[1] block is usually used for their long-term dreams and [1] for for their main hobby
Since there is only one block for hobby, most minipi don't have more than one
-
People [10]: Where minipi store information about others people, when someone is very important they can take up to a whole block
However most of the time information about many people are stored inside one block, which sometimes cause minipi to mix them up
Most of it is usually used to store informations about others minipis
-
Free [5]: Additional blocks that can be used by minipi however they want, usually combined with others categories above to extend their capacities in one of them
Image memory is usually splitted between [20] blocks accumulating their knowledge (similar to the text core memory) and [10] free blocks
Read-only memory
Read-only memory contains [1] block of link memory, [3] blocks of images and [17] blocks of text
Images blocks contains information allowing their to identify important people such as Pi or minipis, it also ways for them to recognize dangerous information or hazard they shouldn't approch (such as anomalies)
Text blocks containing information about what is a minipi, what is "good" and "bad", how to react in case of emergency and what is their goal as minipi
While these information let some leeway for interpretation, they also contains strong directives, preventing them to do anything that is clearly disallowed
Contraty to core memory, these information don't let place for learning or evolving but state things that are immutable
Body
Battery
Minipi uses rechargeable lithium-ion battery to power themselves
This battery is quite sensitive to external factor, if a minipi receive a strong shock, the battery will be ejected from a trap between their legs
When that happen, a bunch of coolant will be released at the same time, mitigating the risks of explosion and fire, and will force the minipi into emergency mode
Minipi's battery are made to last to last around 30 hours and requires 10 hours of charging when empty, but may be drained quicker if the minipi do intenstive activities
When the minipi battery run at 1%, the minipi will enter into emergency mode and the emergency battery will take the relay
Emergency battery
Emergency battery is a little lithium iron phosphate battery only active during emergency mode
It allow the minipi core functionalities to still be operational during that time
Tail
Minipi have a tail primarly used to charge themselves, either in their charging pod or at minipi stations that are placed in the street
It is also used during maintenances to transfert data
Receiver pin
Automatically trigger safety guard protocol when a minipi life is endangered