RobBot

A Discord bot that channels the spirit of Robert Murray-Smith — answering questions about his 2,400+ YouTube videos on DIY science, renewable energy, graphene, batteries, 3D printing, and more.

Built by fans, for fans. Robert Murray-Smith (1965–2025) was a beloved inventor and educator whose curiosity and generosity inspired thousands.

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Features

Command	Description	Uses LLM?
/ask <question>	Ask about Rob's work — answers in his style with video links	Yes
/search <topic>	Find videos by topic or material (instant)	No
/random	Get a random video recommendation	No
/3d <query>	Search Rob's 3D printable designs	No
/about	About the bot and Robert	No

Also responds to @mentions and DMs.

Special behaviors

• Grief support: If someone says "I miss Rob" or similar, the bot breaks character and responds empathetically as a fellow fan
• Prompt injection protection: Attempts to manipulate the bot are deflected humorously in Rob's style
• Off-topic filtering: Non-Rob-related questions get a friendly redirect

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Setup

1. Create a Discord Bot

1. Go to Discord Developer Portal
2. Click New Application — name it "RobBot"
3. Go to Bot tab:
   • Click Reset Token and copy the token (you'll need it for .env)
   • Enable Message Content Intent under Privileged Gateway Intents
4. Go to OAuth2 > URL Generator:
   • Scopes: bot, applications.commands
   • Bot Permissions: Send Messages, Read Message History, Use Slash Commands
   • Copy the generated URL and open it to invite the bot to your server

2. Get Free LLM API Keys

Mistral (primary — 1 billion tokens/month free):

1. Go to console.mistral.ai
2. Create an account (no credit card needed)
3. Go to API Keys and create one

Groq (fallback — fast, free tier):

1. Go to console.groq.com
2. Create an account
3. Go to API Keys and create one

3. Clone the Archive Repo

The bot reads from the Robert Murray-Smith Fan Archive. Clone it somewhere on your machine:

git clone https://github.com/Angelush/robert-murray-smith-archive.git

Note the path — you'll need it for the .env file.

4. Install & Configure

# Clone the bot repo
git clone https://github.com/Angelush/robbot.git
cd robbot

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Configure
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set your Discord token, API keys, and ARCHIVE_PATH

Your .env should include:

DISCORD_TOKEN=your_discord_token
MISTRAL_API_KEY=your_mistral_key
GROQ_API_KEY=your_groq_key
ARCHIVE_PATH=/path/to/robert-murray-smith-archive

5. Build the Vector Database (Optional)

For semantic search (/ask command), build the ChromaDB index from the archive. This step runs from the archive repo, not the bot repo:

cd /path/to/robert-murray-smith-archive
pip install chromadb sentence-transformers
python build_vectordb.py

This creates chroma_db/ (~100 MB) inside the archive directory. The bot reads it from ARCHIVE_PATH/chroma_db/.

6. Run the Bot

python bot.py

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Deployment (Oracle Cloud Free Tier)

The bot runs comfortably on Oracle Cloud's free ARM instance (24GB RAM, 4 vCPU):

# Clone both repos on the server
git clone https://github.com/Angelush/robert-murray-smith-archive.git /app/archive
git clone https://github.com/Angelush/robbot.git /app/robbot

# Build the vector DB on the server (or transfer chroma_db/ from local)
cd /app/archive
pip install chromadb sentence-transformers
python build_vectordb.py

# Configure the bot
cd /app/robbot
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set ARCHIVE_PATH=/app/archive and your API keys

# Run
python bot.py

# Or with Docker
docker build -t robbot .
docker run -d --restart unless-stopped --name robbot robbot

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Architecture

User message
    |
    v
[Grief check] --> pre-written empathetic response (no LLM)
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[Injection check] --> humorous Rob-style deflection (no LLM)
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[Off-topic check] --> friendly redirect (no LLM)
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    v
[Embed query with MiniLM]
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[ChromaDB similarity search -> top 5 videos]
    |
[Build prompt: system + context + question]
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[Mistral API] --> fallback [Groq] --> fallback [Ollama]
    |
[Format response with video links]
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    v
Discord reply in Rob's voice

Zero-cost design: Mistral free tier provides 1B tokens/month. The /search command uses direct topic lookups (no LLM at all). Grief, injection, and off-topic detection use regex (no LLM).

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Data Sources

This bot is powered by the Robert Murray-Smith Fan Archive:

• 2,261 YouTube videos with transcripts, AI summaries, and comments
• 181 Thingiverse 3D designs
• STL files hosted on MEGA

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License

This project is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Robert's original content retains its original licenses (CC BY 4.0 for 3D models, YouTube standard for videos). See LICENSE for details.

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Built with love by fans, for fans.