StratoBuilds developed Pocket Tank to address the problems of water spills and fish dying in real aquariums that fit in a pocket. The device displays fish swimming in a virtual tank and is based on the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8. The board features an ESP32-S3, a 1.8″ display, and a plastic enclosure. The powerful microcontroller runs movement and animations at 25-30 fps. The fish’s decisions are made by a custom large language model scaled down to run on the ESP32; the model monitors the state and changes the goals. The user needs to clean the tank and feed the fish. The project’s blog post and YouTube video are described, and the files are available on GitHub.
Why it matters
Pocket Tank’s main distinction is that it separates the aquarium concept from the risks of physical water and live-animal care while retaining a setup that requires interaction with the user. The fact that the fish’s behavior is determined by a scaled-down model running on the ESP32 shows that the device’s decision-making mechanism consists of more than just pre-made animations. Retaining the maintenance and feeding tasks demonstrates that the project was designed not merely as an image to watch, but as a system requiring the user’s regular intervention. The blog post, video, and GitHub files allow the hardware, software, and interaction layers to be examined together; what remains unclear is the extent to which the model can change the fish’s behavior.