A drop of pond water that lives on your desk.
Cell Pet is a living microscope slide on a 2.8" color touchscreen. Every cell, membrane and tentacle is drawn live at about 25 frames a second. Nothing is a canned animation: it is a little ecosystem that runs all day on your desk.
Each one is programmed and tested by hand before it ships. Plug it into a USB charger and it starts.
How it works
- Nature picks your pet. A fresh drop holds 8 random cells, each born with its own personality: light-loving or shy, hunter or grazer, greedy or modest. The first one to prove itself is crowned: THIS ONE IS YOURS.
- It evolves over about a week. One cell, then a fused pair, a ball colony, a colony whose cells have jobs, and finally a pulsing jellyfish with trailing tentacles that catch its food.
- How you raise it shapes it. A bright room grows green algae partners; a dim one makes it glow. Winning fights makes a hunter with stinging tentacles; a peaceful life makes a see-through grazer. Feeding it makes it plump. No two turn out the same.
- It never dies. Forget about it for a week and it just forages on its own.
- Silly achievements pop up every few minutes, 150 of them: LEARNED TO TIE SHOES! (HAS NO SHOES.), ADOPTED AN ALGAE. NAMED IT GREG.
- The RGB LED on the back blinks along: red when it eats another cell, green when it eats algae, white for its big moments.
- Desk clock: a big time with the date and your local weather, set over your WiFi.
- Touch to play: tap the water to feed, tap a rival to bop it, tap your pet to cheer it on. Pause its evolving anytime, or start a fresh drop.
Specs
| Board | ESP32-2432S028R "Cheap Yellow Display", 2.8" 320×240 color touchscreen |
| Power | 5 V USB: any phone charger or computer port |
| WiFi | Optional, only for the clock and weather. Set up on the touchscreen (on-screen keyboard or your router’s WPS button). It works without WiFi too. |
| Light sensor | On the front: the room’s daytime light shapes your pet |
| Saves | Your pet is saved to flash every minute, so unplugging never loses it |
| Firmware | Open source (GPL-3.0): github.com/revjmoney/CYD-SINGLE-CELL-PET |
What’s in the box
- The 2.8" Cell Pet display in a clear acrylic case, programmed and tested
- A touch stylus
- A USB cable
Open source
The whole firmware is free on GitHub, so you can flash your own board, read the code or tinker with it. Buying one here gets you a board that’s ready to go, and supports more projects like it.
More from the same workshop: RotatoCAM, 4- and 3-axis CAM for DIY CNC.
