I just had a thought, this could be a community project if you guys would like to be involved in the design! Just be forewarned, I may not always use your ideas but I will certainly consider them. That being said, every idea will contribute to pushing the project forward.

If someone wanted to tackle researching the OLEDs that we should use, please do! (Around 2" tall)

If someone wants to tackle finding the silicone type + coloring we should use for Astro's skin, have at er'!

If someone wants to research which TTS voice we should use (and the settings), it would be greatly appreciated!

If someone want to find a low profile male USB connector that can fit in a tight space and interface to a USB 3.0 HUB that would be awesome, I guess I could always make my own with a vertical A male and vertical A female on a perf board.

*Edit: This is referring to the Astro Boy Project

Yay, I found the complete schematic for the Atomic Pi here!

It has all kinds of good stuff, turns out there's an upward facing connector called "Webcam" CN16 that is actually a USB port, so I can interface my hub to there!

I'm also looking to see if I can use the Audio amplifier with only 5V. Maybe if I bypass Q3.....

*Edit: This is referring to the Astro Boy Project

Hi Jer  What Music will you be listening to on the Live Hack night?   My talking head Buddy has a silicone  skin   To long to get into the procedure here but the  silicone skin mimics human skin and you select what color to make  I get the supplies from Sculpture Canada .ca you can see the clay sculpture over the print and electronics in the previous question entry life's challanges and the future.

We'll probably listen to Spotify copyright free music list or Youtube's.

Cool ideas with the clay. I'll check out Sculpture Canada, thanks!

Sorry to everyone that was expecting Astro tonight, I'm going live with a new and exciting build of a 6 FOOT TALL JD!!!!!

what kind off baterie wil you use?50.000 Mah xD

LOL! Sorry Nomad, that would be a crazy huge battery! We are using wall power, 5V 20A supply. 5V will actually be dialed up to 5.5V as the servos operate better at that voltage. There's a trim pot adjustment on the Meanwell supplies that adjusts the voltage above 5V.

I wish I could get a 50000 Mah battery, I use 3 Utility vehicle12 volt12 Amp/hr batteries for outside torque power to my 12 volt wheel motors and then a 5000 Mah Lipo for EzB and motor controllers,sensors and even those 5000 Lipo's cost too much money,I wanted to get a 10,000Mah but not in my budget.I like having enough power to run robot all day outside.

hi roboRad

how big would the charger be.:D lol.

I want to see the 6 foot Jd, when will it be completed?

Are you going to 3D print all the JD 6 foot tall pieces?

Sealed lead acid batteries for the win , 2-4 12v 35 ah batteries will keep it powered for hours. I recommend power sonic brand , fantastic quality to money.

Are you set on a certain way to construct him? I would say your quickest and most accurate option would be to 3D print just the edges of the model and then glue dowels as a temporary frame. Stretch fleece  cloth and hot glue will make a skin, then apply resin epoxy or polyesters when your happy with the outline of your shapes and when they harden you have a large, light and fairly hollow part. You can add fiberglass, Kevlar or other woven cloth to reinforce corners.

Sorry Josh, the comments at the beginning of this thread were referencing the Astro Boy project since I was originally going to Hack Astro. I then switched this Live Hack to the 6 foot JD project half way through Friday. The 6 foot JD is commissioned by EZ-Robot, I am contracting for them. It is built with foam pieces that will be sealed and painted after the dimensions are right. It will be run with a 5V 20A power supply.

Hey Nomad I just use a universal battery charger,does every type of battery,usually takes all afternoon to do them all but then I can go 3 or 4 days before recharge again.

Any new pictures of the Giant JD? Human sized robots are the future by the way :)

hi robo rad

i was just thinking about the live hacks. if they are continue ?

yeah been very very quiet over there........

It's been touring around a bunch of conferences. Haven't seen it since he left a month ago :D

I believe Humanoid JD escaped and went crazy,possibly?

Sorry guys, the Mega JD project ended taking a ton more time and effort than I expected. All of December and early January was dedicated to the project. After it was completed I ended up taking a week off of work to reenergize. The week after I had family visiting. The week after that I had planned on doing a live hack but felt I needed to put some priority on ARC testing, and that gets us to this week, where I ended up taking care of my sick daughter and inevitably got sick myself in the process . Haven’t been sick in years, it sucks! I’m not better yet, but recovering slowly. I hope to start back up next week. Here’s a photo of the project that you may not have seen (sorry we had to hold back on the photos originally so EZ-Robot could make a splash, it definitely was a hit!)

Great picture,looks awesome! Take care of your health,get well. Did you actually get it to walk? would love to see a video of that in the future thanks.

The feet were made to be anchors for Mega's JD's stability so unfortunately their weight makes walking improbable.

Ha ha ya ,could you imagine the sound those large feet would make in a conference hall? Thud-Thud Thud...

Fee-fi-fo-fum! xD

I love it! I wish you recorded more of the progress and did a time lapse or something with the footage.

OMG that is truly amazing...is it moving or poseable? Looks great!!! :D

Hey Jer, since you live out closer to the West coast ,did you possibly catch that Cornholio Flu virus coming out of China?

Man roborad....I peed my pants laughing!!! Best comment ever!!! You are killing it!!!! :D

soo... when is Jd's big brother gonna be on sale? its time  for the robot revolution to  begin, Just think, a robot unlike the NX5 in our homes helping us.

Naw, I didn't get the Cornholio virus, lol, it was the common flu.

I had mentioned that I wanted to a hack night tonight but I completely forgot that I volunteered to drive for a skateboard event this weekend so I'll have to postpone.

Hey Jer ,I have a mild cold myself. Which is odd because I have not been sick for 5 or 6 years. I have a feeling all the Flu and cold bugs are really strong or mutated this winter. Like with all the snow we got lately I have not really gone out to the store or visit any people lately but I guess you can even get cold bugs from picking up old tools and stuff working on the bots.

Cool to see the giant JD all put together. Hope you post a video of it moving soon. Do the eyes light up? You did an amazing job.

what happened with the giant jd project? any new things ,pictures or video.

Sorry @Nomad,

Giant JD is stranded in storage somewhere in Florida. It had to be left behind when the pandemic hit. Turns out the footage we had of him didn't turn out great. So hopefully one day Giant JD will be saved :D.

Need to make a Saving JD video!!!

Giant Jd  was cool -  another one bits the dust :-(

by the way, I haven't seen DJ here lately, what exciting things are you two up too  :-)

EzAng

This reminds me of our competition we had in high school for a pltw class. I got tired of our little guy being incredibly inconsistent so i programmed him to turn at certain time intervals instead since we knew the path ahead of time. onplanners