I'd like to ask the group for some input on what my next software project should be. Here is my list of software project currently:
1.) Automated learning for EZ-Face (to make it easier to train faces during run time)
2.) An Instant Message type chat interface to ARC (this would allow you to chat with ARC and your robot through text chat rather than speech. I invision this used more for children or adults with disabilities.)
3.) A KITT Knight Rider voice screen and data display for ARC (this would display the text-to-speech in a graphic display)
4.) An IronMan Jarvis voice and data display interface for ARC (this would provide a sort of Jarvis themed front end for EZ-Builder)
5.) An Email interface for ARC (so ARC can send and recieve emails with text messages and file attachments)
6.) Weather interface for ARC (so ARC can pull weather data and report on condition)
7.) An Amber Alert feed for ARC (not very practicle, but it might be cool to feed in Amber Alert (A US based child in danager alert system) data to ARC with a possible integration with EZ-Face that on the off chance that your robot spots a missing child, it would recognize them based on the Amber Alert)
8.) Roborealm interface with ARC (Roborealm for $50 really does a lot of neat video processing and hopefully they will integrate an interface for EZ-Robot, but I'd like to make my own until they do because the features in Roborealm I really like are locating a laser, finding the floor, path finding and most importantly Object Recogntion!)
As I work on these, I plan to integrate them with ARC just like I did for EZ-Face and I plan to make them open source, just like EZ-Face.
I would like your input on which ones you'd like to see first and would want to use with your robot.
Thanks!
Asked
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I like the weather interface idea, roborealm interface and the Ironman Jarvis voice, or maybe even a female robotic voice of some kind. Looks like you got your work cut out for you on all the things you want to do :-}
I like the automated learning idea for EZ Face. Great program, any improvement features would be an added plus.
I frequently use the RSS feed from RICH. A weather interface would also be useful and practical.
An Ironman or Woman voice and data display sounds interesting. I would use the female voice. Not sure if you mean like an A.I.?
I agree with Robot-Doc, any navigation system for IRobot Create and Roomba users would be nice. The EZB4 will have send and receive serial commands. I currently can send serial commands to Create having it move calculating angles and distance in realtime, but I will need help with an interface that can translate data from the Create with the new EZB4. There was also talk about an EZ Robot navigation system. An interface program that could fully communicate with these Irobot platforms would be very welcomed and a users dream.
Thank you,
Steve S
Here's Jarvis dynamically responding to me telling him I'm going out, based on the weather report (using Weather Underground's API)
And here's Jarvis giving the weather report (visually and verbally)
If I have time later I'll dig out my notes on the api etc. In my opinion, weather underground is the best of the weather report apis out there. It's also what I use on a few other things (such as my heating control which compensates for the weather conditions so in reality I need it to be fairly accurate)
Im actually using a jarvis application i helped develop for the AI core of my bot.
it's kinda similar to rich's.
With it i can carry on conversations, check internet sites, run searches, and control different appliances and lighting in my apartment through a z-wave system i have set up. it doesn't integrate directly with ARC though which would be an awesome feature.
Our robots could email eachother too, LOL.
At this stage I'm just studying other peoples code or modifying it to suit my needs and get familiar with C#. Heres some, slightly modified code for a quick wunder api app.
Code:
I'm sure that would be very simple to pass the details through to ARC.
Basically, it just needs something to parse the XML. Here is an example XML of the weather report I just asked for;
I think my new top 3 projects are now:
1.) EZ-Face updates - working towards automated faces learning
2.) ARC to Roborealm interface
3.) Visual interface to make Jarvis, KITT, and other robotics type faces/animations integrate with ARC
Having a virtual home base in a corner, then sending the robot to a specific location, on a 2D MAP.
Create does great on hard surface floors sending it to certain distances and angles. IT is fairly accurate performing 90 degree angles left and right returning to center.
Here are a couple of similar links. One using a square bumper to realign Create to it's home base to correct any drift. Maybe the bumper triggers right and left bumper sensors giving movement adjustment to the virtual grid?
The first link is the Groma Create Robot from RobotShop, the video will explain more.
Groma mapping
sites.google.com/site/irobotcreate2/create.exesourcecode
I agree adding features to EZ FACE would be great.
Thank you for asking for input from users.
Steve S
EZ-Face looks totally awesome - can't wait to start using it when my kit arrrives
I hadn't heard of Roborealm before, but it looks like an incredibly powerful tool - so I would welcome anything that you could do to open it up to EZ users!
Take care and keep up the great work!
Jay
I posted a few interesting videos on mapping in another thread.
Hais.
I'm open to collaboration on the weather app or any others. We could always end up with two weather apps because I think the one you are using is a little fancier then the Google offering.
Wunderground API, while it needs an account and is limited to a certain number of calls per day, is free and the number of calls is higher than I've ever needed (and my heating system calls for the external temperature, wind speed and wind direction every minute, so 1440 calls per day... I think)
I will admit I am a bit of a Wunderground fanboy since I've used it for as long as I can remember to be honest. I've not looked in to any others (if it aint broke don't fix it).
I'll be largely basing my code on that I posted last night, which could very likely be altered for any other API. Depending on my progress with C# I may even add in options for a selection of APIs to use (Wunderground, Google, Yahoo, Met office, etc. etc. etc.)
We shall see
If you do the roborealm integration you should be able to use the roborealm AVM navigator plugin.
It does object recognition and path navigation.
http://www.roborealm.com/help/AVM_Navigator.php
Also take a look there are C# examples for parsing the roborealm API XML and using example 52 of the SDK you can get the values of variables into ARC and vice versa.
For example you can use the sendcommand method from example 52 in the EZ-SDK combined with the getvariable method from the roborealm API C# examples
While you would need more code than whats shown below I used these methods from the roborealm examples and EZ-SDK example 52 to pass values to ARC.
SendCommand code snippet:
Code:
getVariable code snippet:
Code:
Both method being use in a forms button:
Code:
website
he uses a laptop and kinect for most of his projects here is loki
Loki
Click To Watch Video
he told me try out ez robot for a simple way of programming
I have not been programing or working on robots much. I've been dealing with a sick doggy. My American Bulldog is having heart issues. For my fellow dog owners on the forum I'm sure you can relate - a sick doggy makes for bad times.
The bridge app is still on my radar though. :-)
A robot that reads my emails and reports weather sounds very very cool. I like the added functionality. It takes them beyond mere toys.