Welcome to the forum. The best place to start learning about EZ Robots and all they can, is to do all of the "Getting Started" tutorials. Even though they may not be specific to your Bot, you will gain insight on how to do all of the things you are asking about.

I'm about to jump on a plane to fly home to Calgary. I'll write you a little tutorial this evening when I'm home.

Thanks DJ now you aren't just my son's hero but mine as well.

Hour by hour. That's how we all get there. Good ideas take great effort. Great ideas take a lifetime. I didn't know anything about electronics until I started tinkering with ezrobot and Arduino now I am actually a beginner to robotics just a few years later. Imagination is the key, door and map. Enjoy and don't fear the blue smoke.

First small step was taken tonight. My son was in heaven when I decided to just let him use my phone to control it. A few little clicks and I had it up and running. I think my son is in heaven just being able to control it with my phone. We just want to encourage his love of robots since he has been an avid watcher of all the you tube videos. In fact as his dad was watching the tutorials tonight he said I have watched a lot of ez-robot videos.

Hope you had a safe trip home DJ Sures. My son was hoping you were celebrating Thanksgiving with all the robots. (we live in US but he saw on his calendar that it was just the Canadian Thanksgiving recently and he thought of you.)

Thanks! Canadian thanks giving was awesome to be back home with my family. I'm settling in home and a little behind. I will have to give you a more detailed writeup tommorrow

@Future mom.

First off, welcome to the community. It's great to have you here. @leversofpower has got it spot on. Try not to get overwhelmed with all what can be done with the EZ-Robot platform, small steps are best. When I first joined here, I had no idea what was what, and had little experience of building robotsnand dived in at the deep end taking on too much. Looking back, playing around with simple commands then eventually building on that is by far the best way, as well as looking at other members project examples in the EZ-Cloud, and asking here on the forum. Lots of friendly and helpful people here who are willing to help.

It's great to here your son enjoyed controlling his robot with your phone. Great fun isn't it? I don't know of many robots you can do that with without paying a small fortune, and still have the ability to add in that. You and your son are in good hands here and I'm sure one day not too long from now, your son will be showing us what to do.

While waiting on DJ to write up an adventure bot tutorial, going through some of the Roli or Six tutorials will give you a good overview of the abilities (in my opinion Adventure Bot is different enough from JD that those tutorials will not be as useful). Alan

Thanks everyone! This had been great at least having others encourage us. Now that he has the control with my phone (and loving it) was wondering if anyone knows of a way to make a kindle fire work to control it so he doesn't have to steal my phone! Hahaha

@Future Ez Robot builders Mom Unfortunately you need a pc, android or IOS device only... But if you can get him set up on the computer with ARC, you can have your phone back...

ARC mobile would probably work on a Kindle Fire since it is Android, but it isn't on the Amazon app store, and kindle can't access Google Play store. I am not sure if the Kindle supports side loading apps, in which case DJ could post the apk here, otherwise he needs to post to Amazon app store and test because the Kindle is a customized version of Android.

Alan

Tonight we tried getting the voice recognition to work and also programming his LED block. Something isn't working and I have no idea what? We adjusted the microphone, I re-read the directions... I tried everything that it said to do but when it came time to actually use the voice recognition it was as though only my computer was responding. Adventure bot did nothing. Computer responded so does that mean I have to shut down the computer to get the robot to respond. Again, totally clueless.

Check to make sure your computer is connected to the EZB. You have to connect to it every time you power it up.

We have hit a wall...I don't know how to figure this out any further. We have spent a couple nights trying to get the voice recognition to work and realized that it only works when the computer is hooked up. Not from the mobile app. So tried my best to make our own app to see if I could add the voice recognition/microphone controls to my phone so it would work through it. No luck...even took a break to see if I could figure out the distance sensor...no luck...hating seeing the frustration in my kids eyes that I just don't have a clue what I am doing...even after watching numerous videos and reading the tutorials. Something has to give! Sorry just venting my frustrations since I can't to the 7 year old! confused

avery windows has this key ? click on that and you get all info

Sorry to hear your having trouble. Speech recognition does not actually work with mobile devices via the ARC mobile as it is not supported at the moment, which is why you're having trouble. Here is a list of what the mobile app does support which can be found in the mobile apps user manual...

Mobile Interface Builder SoundBoard (ezb) WiiMote Auto Position (Movement Panel) Auto Position Auto Position Real-time Pose Connection Desktop View Custom Movement Panel Lidar Lite HBridge Movement Panel HBridge PWM Movement Panel HT16K33 Animator HMC5883 Compass Microphone (ezb) MPU6050 Accelerometer/Gyro/Temp MPU9151 Accelerometer/Gyro/Temp/Compass Modified servo Movement Panel Movement Script Nest Thermostat/CO/Smoke Notepad Touch Pad (Servo Pad) RGB Animator Roomba Movement Panel Sabertooth Movement Panel EZ-Script Script Monitor Servo Auto Release SSC-32 Variable Watcher

In regards to the ultrasonic distance (ping) sensor, here's a quick and dirty setup tutorial I put together for you, using the radar control.

1.) Connect the sensor up to the EZ-B as follows...

5v regulator output red wire to "Power" on ping sensor, 5v regulator output black wire to "Ground" on ping sensor,

GROUND = Black wire from regulator input to a digital port black pin, for example, port D0. POWER = Red wire from regulator input to red pin D0. TRIGGER = white wire to D0 White pin. ECHO = green wire to D1 White pin.

2.) In the ARC software on your computer, click...

Project, Add controls, Ultrasonic, Radar.

3.) Click the little gear icon on the new radar control to open up the configuration menu.

4.) Using the D0 and D1 port example above, set the "Trigger port" to D0 (or whatever you have the ping sensors white wire connected to).

5.) Then do the same for the "Echo port", setting this to D1 (or whatever you have the ping sensors green wire connected to).

6.) I don't know if you have the long sensor connected to a servo, but for now I'll assume it is not and is fixed in place. In this case, leave the "Servo port" set to "NA". servo min and max positions can be left alone for now as they are not needed.

7.) Tick the check box for "Scan when moving forward", to make the ping sensor only scan for objects when the "Forwards" button is pressed to move the robot. Then tick the "Control movement panel" box as well. You can choose the "reverse before turning" option too if you wish.

8.) Choose the distance you want the robot to turn away from a detected object by selection the "Minimum distance before turn" from the dropdown menu.

9.) Once the chances are made, click "Save".

10.) From what you have said, you are able to drive the robot around, so you must have a Movement Panel set up on your ARC project already. So on the mobile interface, make sure you have the "Forward" "Right" "Reverse" and "Left" buttons added to the interface like the ones seen below...

11.) These are already preconfigured to the Movement Panel so you don't need to do anything else here. Once these mobile buttons are added, click "Save".

Now because you ticked the box saying "Scan when moving forwards" in the ping sensor control, this automatically connects to the movement panel, so when you move the robot and it sees an object at the minimum distance you chose, it should now steer away from it.

I hope that helps, and don't be afraid to play about with some of the radar settings like changing the time delays ect, but if you get stuck on anything, don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks a lot for the help. I need to figure out making my own app and actually be able to use it. I had most of it set up but when I finished having all of the contols on it I haf no clue what to do next. Need to watch the video I guess since I was just reading the tutorial thing.

My son has been happy just driving around using the premade app from DJ Sures but we need to get all his fancy stuff working so that means this mom has to get it all figured out

Will get it eventually. Thanks again for the tips will try again once the toddler is asleep!

Distance Sensor is working (at least the screen shows it working) and scanning, animator is now working, My son loves having it talk back to him and tell him about his "fancy animation", speech recognition works to get the animator going but we can't get it to work to actually have adventure bot move. It will show that it recognizes what we are saying but there is no movement. I am not sure what is going on exactly because if it works to get the animation going I would think it should work for everything else.

I have tried making my own "app" for controlling him but that also doesn't seem to be working. It shows it is connected but the camera isn't showing anything and the controls don't do anything.

As you guys can see he is very thankful for his EZ Robots, Wall-E (which he hopefully will one day turn into his very own Wall-E bot), EZ Revolution, and lastly his family and friends. I am just thankful for the tips you all have helped me with this far. I am hoping maybe someone could give me some new ideas so I can use my time off for Thanksgiving to help get this robot moving a little more.

Thanks again for all your help so far. Slowly but surly we are getting someplace.

:)

Even though it is EZ robot never underestimate how difficult it is to learn cutting edge technologies. EZ robot is cutting edge tech. It is a constant experimentation and study. But the results of the can be quite fascinating...

There's a peak to the curve once you cross it things go more smoothly... Takes time tho. What you are working with you child is important. It was like that in the eighties for me. I didn't see the money learning the skill at that time no one really did that I knew...but now it's big bucks. I wish I had a mother helped me back then...

With the speech recognition and moving a robot, make sure you have a Movement Panel control of some kind that controls the robots movements (which I think you may have already). It's these movement panels that link to the speech recognition controls using the Forwards(), Reverse(), Lect(), and Right() commands.

In regards to speech recognition, it is possible for ARC to hear what you say and do nothing when your expecting it to. This is down to something called "Speech Recognition Tutorial Confidence" which is found and changed in the speech recognition menu. Basicly, what this does is it makes the robot do something when the confidence level is above a certian number (which you can change), or do nothing if it is below a certian number.

Something you might find useful to look through at the end of this post, is a tutorial I wrote about speech recognition and how to use it's different features successfully. If you do have a read of it and have any questions, give us a shout and either myself or someone else will do our best to answer.

About the camera, just to note that when you are looking at a camera control on a mobile interface on a computer, you won't see the cameras feed and just see a blank screen which is normal. The cameras stream however, will be seen on a mobile device using the same mobile app you've created. To view the cameras stream on a computer, you can always add a camera control to your ARC project which will do all of the fancy stuff such as tracking if you wish. Can I ask, what device are you using the mobile app on, and what controls have you added to it?

It's great to hear you got things like the distance sensor working and other bits, and really nice to hear your little man is enjoying his robot.

EDIT: There has been an update to the mobile interface regarding the camera which you can see here.

Thanks that helped to know about the camera not working on the monitor but working on the mobile app. We went back and watched the making a mobile app the other day and I think I need to go back and make some changes because I didn't set it up correctly. That may help to have it working...lol everything is there just not doing much. It connects and the camera works. Just no movement. But think I know what I did wrong now..maybe!

I think I am slowly figuring this all out but it is just different when it is his passion not mine. Thankfully I teach Kindergarten all day so I am able to be a little bit patient while we learn. We are pacing ourselves but celebrating our successes when they come.

Going to give him some back up robots for Christmas so we can rotate! Maybe let him do them more on his own. He is already singing "we wish you a robot christmas" Yep, he loves his robots and we love him so he will have his robot christmas.

:)

Ok need help again this is more of a servo question. My son's adventure bot has been a hit but about a week ago the one wheel lost ability to move by way of servo. Not sure what exactly happened. What I need to know is what do I have to order for a replacement. We have had it since September so need to keep it working. I have to buy the whole wheel kit or can I just get the rotation servo. I don't want to buy unnessary parts and I want to get it up and going asap since Six will be joining the party! Need to get it up and going soon since he is having the best Robot Christmas.

The continuous rotation servo with wheel would be easiest https://www.ez-robot.com/Shop/AccessoriesDetails.aspx?prevCat=104&productNumber=1303

You can get just the servo from the diy page, and re-use the wheel and plastic parts from the original and save a few dollars.

Have you tried plugging it into a different port and redefining the movement panel? It would be good to verify if the servo is bad or a pad port on the EZ-B before ordering anything.

Alan

The simple way is by buying this, and switching out the bad one for this, but lets see if we can figure out what went wrong.

Make a new ARC project. Add a continuous rotation servo control(not the movement panel). Press the gear icon, click the servo port box and select the port the servo is plugged into. Then save and get back to the normal project screen. Now press the left and right buttons on the control and see if the servo moves. If not, try changing the port the servo is plugged into, change the control to that servo, and make sure it is plugged in the right way(black on black). If it still won't move, its probably shot.

Edit: Alan! Just a little faster than me!

Quote:

Edit: Alan! Just a little faster than me!

Alan

Thanks for ideas. Have been trying to figure out Six today and having hard time getting it to charge...ugh if it isn't on thing it is another. Thankfully kiddo got Mip so while I test and try to figure out next step he at least can be working with him.

Update we have wheel fixed, (thanks Alan!) new lever servo attached but now we need help with making the servo work so the camera will move up and down. I am guessing I will need to make a mobile app but not sure how exactly to add servo to the mobile app. Will it automatically recognize that it is hooked up, will we need to do anything with the servo profiles. TechGuru and WSB you guys always come through for us so maybe you can help us out. I need to watch the making a mobile app video again since it has been a while. Right now my little builder is so happy to have his Ez robots out and ARC going again! Thanks for your help!

Nope, the app will not automatically recognize the new servo. The good news is that is it really easy to add.

I take it you have already done a mobile app for the Adventure Bot since he is using that to control it now?

All the following has to be done on the computer.

Regardless, you just go to the second virtual desktop (Window tab or F11) in the ARC program for the Adventure Bot. There you'll see the basic mobile app window. Click on the gear icon in the upper left to go into edit mode. On the left you will see a number of controls that can be used with the mobile app. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see one called "Add servo Slider." Click on it and it will appear at the top left. Drag it to where you want it to be (just below the movement controls is probably good).

Then you need to setup the values for the component. They are displayed on the right.

The servo Port will be the port to which you attached the servo that moves the camera.

The min and max should be set up for safety for this first pass. You don't want the servo slamming the camera down on the bot when it starts up or is moved by the slider. That can all too easily happen. So, on this first pass at it, you should set the min and max to +- 10 degrees. That means set the Min Value to 80 and the Max Value to 100. The straight up position is 90 degrees. That's the position as seen in the picture you posted.

Save your work (Save on bottom left)

If you're not connected to the Adventure Bot, do so now. You should be able to control it from your newly edited mobile app from your computer. Moving the slider should move the new servo.

Now you can adjust the Min Value and Max Value numbers to make the camera move the amount you wish it to.

That's it. Once you're satisfied with how it works, follow the procedures to upload it to the cloud and then down to your phone. And away it goes.

Awesome thanks! Will get that going tonight with him! He will love it.

Alright we tried tonight with the mobile app. We normally just use DJs premade app when he wants to use my phone to drive it arround. We have tinkered with making a mobile app but normally have only partial success.

Tonight he was so excited to make his "first app" He has helped me in the past but he really wanted to start from the begining with a brand new app made by him. The problem is he also decided to move the lever servo and reconfigure his robot again. Always trying new things and he wants his adventure bot to wave. Great in theory but it changes things a bit. Long story short. His new app is set up and the camera works just fine but for some reason the movement arrows are not working. We didn't even go back and add his other parts we added previously. (Laptop shut down on us ugh!) Do I have to send it to my cloud before that function works or did we miss something?

Will have to try again tomorrow night so any new suggestions are welcome.

Not quite sure I get what you are asking, but yes, any changes made from the desktop need to be saved to the cloud and thwn updated or downloaded to the phone.

You can have multiple projects saved on your desktop and on the cloud and it is a good idea to make one with a different name if you are making big changes so you can easily revert.

I'm not quite sure what all happened here.

Quote:

but he really wanted to start from the beginning with a brand new app made by him

Also, did he change the wiring for the wheel servos, connecting them to different ports than D0 and D1 (or reversed D0 and D1)?

Quote:

and he wants his adventure bot to wave.

Additionally, yes, you do have to upload your modified mobile control to the cloud and then turn around and download it to your phone before you can use it.

When you save it to the cloud, it's best to name it something other than the name you used for the original one you are using now. When you go to edit mode in the mobile app window, a few things will appear on the right. Topmost will be the name of the app. You can change it to whatever you wish at that point. You can then use that name as the name to save it under when you send it to the cloud. Even if the new name is just adding a number to the old name. It's best to save each version under a different name so you don't lose the old app. Don't forget to save the app on the computer when you change the name.

EDIT Sorry Alan, didn't see yours before posting mine.

Thanks guys that helps. Will try again tonight.

Yes, he started with a blank app and added everything to it.

No he didn't change the wheel servos at all. It is crazy but he knows where all of the servos plug into from watching the videos on youtube over and over again. (Probably over 100 times) I'm still just going back and double checking where they need to be. Lol

He put the lever servo out in front of the wheel so when the lever servo moves it will make the extension block move looking like it waves. (That is his plan anyways) we will see what happens.

Ughhh! I am feeling more and more frustrated with this whole thing! If it weren't for my son I would walk away from this whole thing!

I have watched the making a mobile app thing about 10 times tonight and feel more lost than I did before.

My previous postings probably didn't make sense to you guys because the last time I worked on making a mobile app was a while ago and trying to go back in to do it this time is like starting over completely. I guess that is the problem of doing this all in small spurts when we can.

I promised my son I would try to figure this out so I am once again bugging you all for help.

Question 1: To make the mobile app work I need to start by downloading the latest Adventure bot app and go from there, right? This may have been how I messed up the last few times so the adventure bot never moved only the camera worked.

Question 2: Mobile apps will or will not work with his animator and/or ultrasonic distance sensor? I remember one or both only work on a computer.

Question 3: If he wants to make the lever servo be an "arm" on his adventure bot there really isn't a tutorial for where exactly it has to be plugged in...does it have to be in a certain port, he plugged it into D3? How exactly am I going to get the arm to actually "wave" like he wants it to?

Question 4: When I started up the adventurebot it wanted me to do something with the wheel servos. I have not clue what they should be set at is there a guide for how to set the servos so we don't burn them out or wreck them?

Thank you for helping me out with this. I just don't want to let my kiddo down. It just is hard for me because this robot stuff really isn't may strength. I hate to say it but I need this stuff dumbed down for me because I really have no clue what I am doing 5 months into EZ-Robot stuff. Don't rush to get back to me I am back to normal schedule tomorrow so hopefully we can try again next weekend. I just appreciate your patience and help in anyway you can with this.

No problem. Glad to help. I just got in and checked on things, but I have to go out again. So tomorrow I'll write up something in a step by step form that you can follow. I'll also answer your questions as I go.

I have all the spare parts needed to make up an Adventure Bot and I'll put one together so I can test it all out myself. It would help, however if you could post a picture or two of the latest arrangement of your Adventure Bot so I can be sure to have mine the same. Also I will need to know which port he has plugged the new lever servo into so I can use the same one. Same for any other servos he may have attached and set up (besides the wheels). From the image you posted before, it looked like all he had extra on the unit was that camera servo (and, of course the camera itself), an ultrasonic sensor, and an RGB Animator (flashing lights component). The RGB Animator is the only thing I don't have an extra of, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Don't worry, we'll sort it out.

EDIT I just looked over your last post again and saw you said he plugged the new servo into D3, so that answers that. and no, it doesn't matter which one he plugs it into as long as it's one of the digital ports on the left or the bottom (and not the analog ports on the right side).

Thanks so much! I will get a picture up of how everything is hooked up.
Yes, he has the camera, RGB Animator and an ultra sonic distance sensor hooked up as well as the new lever servo in front of the right wheel. No rush as I will probably be busy most of this week. Hopefully over the weekend I can try again with him.

Will get picture up hopefully tomorrow. I need to take a breather from this robot for now.

@Future EZ Robot builders Mom.

I know that WBS is going to fix up an Adventure bot to help you, but I've got a little time on my hands, and figured I'd chime in to see if a can be of any further help.

Question 1.

Quote:

Question 1: To make the mobile app work I need to start by downloading the latest Adventure bot app and go from there, right? This may have been how I messed up the last few times so the adventure bot never moved only the camera worked.

Yes. Ideally you would want to have the Adventure bot project loaded first then delete or edit the existing mobile interface found on window two. If you started with a new project from scratch then added a new mobile interface, you would have to add in all of the code that makes everything work. The easiest would be to use the pre-made Adventure project, then change or delete the mobile interface (or anything else for that matter), then make your own.

Question 2.

Quote:

Question 2: Mobile apps will or will not work with his animator and/or ultrasonic distance sensor? I remember one or both only work on a computer.

The RGB Animator will work with a mobile app, but as far as I am aware, the Ultrasonic distance sensor controls will not (at least that's how it appears in the Mobile App User Guide (not sure about using scripts for an ultrasonic sensor though, as I've never tried it). Have a look back at in this thread (page 2) post #17 where I've already posted the list of what the mobile app supports for you.

Question 3.

Quote:

Question 3: If he wants to make the lever servo be an "arm" on his adventure bot there really isn't a tutorial for where exactly it has to be plugged in...does it have to be in a certain port, he plugged it into D3? How exactly am I going to get the arm to actually "wave" like he wants it to?

As WBS mentioned, a servo can be connected and used with any of the 24 digital ports. The following is a short walk though to get a lever servo to move in a "waving" motion, and how to add it to a mobile interface to be used with your smartphones mobile app. There are a few ways to do this, and this is just one relatively simple way to do what you asked...

1.) With the Adventure bot project open on your computer, from the ribbon menu at the top of ARC, click "Project".

2.) Then click "Add Controls".

3.) Click on the "Scripting" tab, then click on "EZ-Script".

4.) On the new EZ-Script control you just added, click on the small gear icon to open the script editor.

5.) In the top left corner, you will see where it says "Name" and a box that says "Script" next to it. Click in the box, delete "Script", and write "My first wave".

6.) Copy the following script, and past it in to the script editor on line 1...

# This assumes that you have the lever servo connected to port D3 as you mentioned. 
# And that the servo start or resting position is 90 degrees.

Servospeed(D3,1) #Sets servo speed.

Servo(D3,160) #Servos first movement.
sleep(500) # A short 1/2 a second (500 millisecond) pause to allow the servo to finish moving.
servo(D3,90) #Servos second move.
sleep(500)
Servo(D3,160)
sleep(500)
servo(D3,90)
sleep(500)
Servo(D3,160)
sleep(500)
servo(D3,90)
sleep(500)

#Feel free to change and play with the servo positions, servo speed, and length of sleeps to your choosing.

7.) Click "Save" on the bottom of the script editor.

Other ways you could do it is to put the first script directly in to the mobile button script editor, or create a "wave" action in the Auto Position control, and add a wave ControlCommand() in to the mobile button script editor.

8.) On the mobile interface (either the one that comes with the project, or a new one that you have added), click on the small gear icon.

9.) Click on "(ABC) Add Button" to add a new button to your mobile interface.

10.) Click on the new button, and move it to a position of your choosing.

11.) On the right hand side of the screen, you will see "On pressed Script" with a "Edit Script" button next to it. Click on the "Edit Script" button to open the script editor, delete any script that may already be there, and add the following script...

ControlCommand("My first wave", ScriptStart)

12.) Click "Save" on the bottom of the script editor.

13.) On the top right hand side of the mobile editor, you will see the word "Text" and a window with "Button" written inside. Delete the word "Button", and write the word "Wave".

14.) Click on "Save" on the bottom of the mobile interface editor. At this point, you can connect your Adventure bot to ARC and try out the new button. Clicking the button will start the "my first wave" script.

15.) On the ARC ribbon menu, click "File" then under "EZ-Cloud App Store", click "Save" and follow the prompts to save the changes made to your project.

16.) Now open the newly changed app on your phone and try out the new button on your mobile interface control.

Question 4.

Quote:

Question 4: When I started up the adventurebot it wanted me to do something with the wheel servos. I have not clue what they should be set at is there a guide for how to set the servos so we don't burn them out or wreck them?

I must admit here, I don't know what message you are getting here, or what it would mean (someone else probably does though). Could you grab a picture of it, or write out exactly what it says. That would be a great help.

I hope this will help. Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you both! I tried again last night without my son watching and didn't have much luck. So hopefully between the two of you I should be able to get this working.

I remembered what it wanted me to enter when setting up the adventure bot it wanted me to set the servo profiles for the wheels. They were both at 0 so didn't know if they had to be changed or not.

Last night I tried having the tutorial going while doing the mobile app...for some reason when I pulled it up on my phone it was just a white screen. On the computer it showed everything but just not on my phone.

Will try again with all the help I can get!

Thanks a bunch!

You don't need a servo profile for AdventureBot. It is used to fine tune the 90 degree position and is most important for robots like JD. I believe there is an option somewhere to have it stop asking you to load it on the mobile app, but I rarely use the mobile app so I am not sure where to tell you to look.

Alan

Thanks Alan. I won't worry about it. I just didn't want to damage it somehow.

Well, we have some of the mobile app hopefully changed around and working. But of course our little bot has been played with enough in the last couple days that his battery was low by the time we were ready to test everything out. Good thing is we were able to see some of the things working on the computer before we turned him off. Even had to test out following and spying on the dogs and cats.

One excited little guy! (Have to admit it was fun seeing him get excited about what we were doing and seeing things come together.) He renamed the App to "My first Working App" to celebrate an app we hope will work tomorrow after the battery is charged.

Should hopefully have this guy going just in time to start all over with figuring out Six next. (New battery will be on the way soon!) Then the fun will really begin having them rule our living room.

I admit I am already thinking of what else we could add to change him up even more. Think I will let little guy decide what parts he need next though.

Thanks for input and help. Not in the clear yet but hopefully we are making some good progress!

@Steve_G Excellent! Just excellent. Thank you for stepping up like that Steve. As things worked out today I had to be gone all day (and night) and have just gotten back a while ago. I didn't feel too bad about not getting to the Adventure Bot today since she said they would not be trying something else until the weekend. Apparently she found some time to try again and your writeup was just what was needed. It's essentially what I was going to do and the pictures are a great help.

Anyway, I'll wait to see how it goes before adding anything further myself. Seems like things are beginning to work out as it is. Thanks again.

Thanks! We have made some progress and my little builder did some checking things out before I got home today. So I now have new questions!

The app is working! That is huge! I was able to get most things working. The problem is that the lever servo is not working to do the "wave" I am not sure if it is because my Builder decided to play with it after school with his dad and they some how moved it or if he had it working and the servo was not where it needed to be. Of course a 7 year old doesn't remember what exactly happened.

The next question I have is for @Steve_G or anyone who knows this answer you said the lever servo needed to be at 90 degrees. If the servo right now is not at 90 degrees how do I move it back to 90 degrees safely. I don't want to screw it up!

confused

You just caught me before I went to bed, lol. When I said the servo needs to be at 90 degrees, that was just an example I was using so I could show you a script example, although 90 looked good from what I saw from your photo. But to answer, there's a few ways you can do it.

If the lever servo is calibrated correctly and not connected to the EZ-B, you can do it by hand by gently moving the lever to its half way point, although you might not get exactly 90 degrees, but pretty close. Then you can connect it to the EZ-B, although it will move slightly when power is first applied. You can also do it with the servo connected to the EZ-B, as long as the EZ-B has no power going to it.

To get it to exactly 90 degrees, with the EZ-B powered and connected to ARC, one way would be to add a single EZ-Script control like I mentioned in my last post, then with your servo connected, say to EZ-B digital port D5, write or copy the following script..,

Servo(D5,90)

Click "save", then click "Run". This will take your servo to 90 degrees. Now you can delete the EZ-Script control if you wish.

Another way you can do it is to...

Go to "project", then "Add Control", click "servo" then either click on "vertical servo" or "horizontal servo". Click the gear icon on the horizontal or vertical servo control you just added, Select the servo port number to, in this example, D5,

Now plug the servo in to port D5. It should move to 90 degrees as soon as you connect it as the control is set to 90 be default. But to make sure the servo is at 90 degrees...

move the "min" value down to 1 (servo will move), Move the "max" value to 180 (servo will move), Click "save" Now on the servo control, click "centre" which will take your servo to 90 degrees.

(Actually doing it this way, you can visually see what the minimum and maximum degrees your servo can safely move incase the servo does not have room to move the full 180 degrees.)

Again, You can now delete the servo control of you wish.

There are a couple of other ways to do it, but the two examples above will do what you need.

Hope that helps.

@WBS. Thanks for the kind words buddy.

Thanks! We tested some things out and now just going to try and go back and do what you suggested and add our RGB animator next. Making some progress. He is lighting up every time something works! I have to admit when things are going well it is fun for me, too!

You guys are awesome and we appreciate you so much! @ Steve_G

My son does wonder how you got your dog to sit criss cross apple sauce like at school lol @ WSB.

Your more than welcome.

Trust me, I know the feeling. That's the thing about robotics... when something doesn't work the way you expect, it can be a royal pain (but a good learning experience). But when things go right, it's smiles and happy days all around, lol. It's great to hear you're both enjoying it a bit more now.

Wow! Tonight I think I got the biggest smile out of him yet! We had a wave and he had speech recognition working on it tonight. He was so excited it took an extra 1/2 hour to get him to put down the computer and go to bed! Need to go back and read up my post on the RGB because he is wanting to work on it again tomorrow, and every day this weekend! Thank goodness his 2 year old sister sleeps! lol I think he would try and get her to bed by 6 p.m. if he could just so he could let the robots out! At this rate though she probably will love them as much as him since she already walks around with his Wall-e we bought to make the eventual "Wall-e Bot"

Thanks for making this easier on me!

Really pleased to hear things are working out and that the little man is having a lot of fun. Great stuff.

A long time coming but had to share this with you guys!

https://youtu.be/JOdHteIsZs0

Oops! The other one was later.

Those are fantastic! So glad to see how much he is enjoying it.

And now I think I am going to re-design my adventurebot. I like how he has hte camera and ping sensor mounted low.

Alan

Fun - fun - fun! He has done some creative things to AB (Adventure Bot). Like using the RGB Led Block as a head. Looks cool that way. Now he just has to condition himself to talking to the computer instead of the robot. That's hard to do though. Still, it picked up his voice pretty well even from a distance and facing the wrong way.

I look forward to future videos featuring Robot Boy and His Trusty Mechanical Companion, ABE (Adventure Bot Extraordinaire). Then the sequel, Robot Boy and Mecha-Spidey - The Adventure Continues! Finally, the exciting conclusion to the trilogy ... Robot Boy and ABE vs Rogue Mecha-Spidey! eek

LOL! What fun. He's a lucky kid to have such a loving and caring mom as you. He's got a bright future ahead of him.

@Future Ez Robot builders Mom... Just wait until he starts hacking and taking all the electronic things in the house apart... Oh wait, that was me when I was a kid... Still, I would hide your iPhone if I were you LOL. I find it so amazing that your boy has no problem understanding this stuff in yet we have had a few adult members (that claim a background in robotics and computers) just never quite get how ez robot works... There is actually a couple of youngsters on here that in fact are "rocking" ez robot.... Good to see..

The future is for the Young, God Bless them!

Great videos. I certainly looks like the little guy was in his element showcasing his Adventure bot design. With all of the help offered on this forum, videos like that is the greatest payoff ever and makes it all worth while. I look forward to see what's next. Thanks for sharing.

I have one suggestion. I noticed he was doing a lot of chasing of the robot when it was going forward or back and needing to repeat "Robot Stop". The robot itself makes noise (although Adventurebot not nearly as much as, say, a Roli) and as he is chasing it he is moving further from the computer, so it is harder to be heard.

if you modify the default forward and reverse scripts in the speech recognition object so they look like the left and right commands you can have it automatically stop moving after some number of seconds and he'll just need to repeat the "Robot move forward" to get it to go again.

Example:

#this will make the robot move forward at top speed for 3 seconds
forward(255,3000)

It also looks like you have a ping sensor installed, but maybe not configured. It can be set to automatically stop the robot when it gets too close to any object (or through some fancy scripting, stop, turn, and keep going. See the Ping Roam sample project from Rich. It is quite complex though).

Alan

Thanks everyone! He loved seeing all of the messages! Alan, thanks for the suggestion. We will try that tonight. We dinked around with it before but I admit we haven't done much with the RGB or the Ping lately. We had it all set up on a different app that was our first test. They are just there in spirit. . .but this weekend since the house is full of yucky bugs and we probably will get a snow storm we will have time to fine tune again. He was just so excited I had to share. I a glad you guys can give tips just from seeing a video.

The replacement battery for Six showed up today so we have a lot to get busy with his robots! He has his list going for what all robots he wants to get started on once we have Six up and running!

Six is up and running again! Much easier the second time! Even calibrated the servos that were off. Feeling pretty proud of myself and of course Robot boy is in heaven. Now to get the mobile app going for Six and have to figure out how to hide my phone so he doesn't take ownership of it!

This gets easier every time but I forget that Robot boy has watched every video and can actually tell me what to do and I should trust him more.

@DJ Sures my son wanted to make sure to wish you a Happy Groundhog day so before he goes to bed I had to make sure to post it. (We aren't even sure anyone else celebrates this odd day.) HA! But hey we are snowed in for 2nd day tomorrow so yeah Robot building it is for another 24 hours.