Spock wont be worked on in a while. I will be focusing on getting a few products to market by November of 2016.
I had a meeting with my investing partner last friday. He is willing to back the projects and has offered a very considerable amount of money to do so. His father owns a very large company in india who already has contracts with Chinese manufacturing houses and India based support firms. We will leverage this to help us get the ball rolling when we start production and after the products get to market. I should have funding for a prototype by the end of the week.
An artist friend, who I met because of EZ-AI is working on the concept artwork. I thank him deeply for his willingness to do the artwork as I can't draw for anything. Once complete I will pass this on to the mechanical engineer (a friend of my wifes). I will use his equipment that he has available to him (6 axis CNC, Really advanced CAD tools, fluid flow calculation software for Injection mold modeling, resistance calculating software based on the model and weight, Electrical engineering software for calculating current flow and resistance of electronics and extremely high end skills at product design and documentation necessary for taking a product to market). He works for a major company who makes a lot of industrial equipment so his expertise will be very valuable. He will make the 3D models and CAD drawings of every component from the artwork provided and from the list of items that I have chosen for this product. He also has the pull of the large company he works for to get CAD drawings and detailed schematics for everything that I will be using. This will help a huge deal.
The goal is to get the prototypes complete by December of this year, and get the parts being manufactured and ready for assembly by July. From there, we will hire in people to build the final products. The nice thing is that I don't have to rely on a kickstarter to get things going. Pieces are falling into place and it is very exciting.
My son will be finished with College in December of this year. He will be helping me to write the software for the robot through the next November to fine tune the software for release. There are quite a few things that are going to be added, which will eventually find their way into EZ-AI.
I have some questions out to other people/companies about using their products with my products. This will help to determine which way I take some things. Voice recognition will be a very important part of this project. I will be using a tablet or really light weight computers. Because of this, voice processing would be nice if it were done off the computer and this is where Watson or DNS Cloud will be a huge help. It is really amazing all of the tools that are available to make insane products now. It will only get better from here.
I will be making a trip to EZ-Robot in August or September. I will present the products concepts to them for a couple of reasons. DJ, I wont be asking for money so no worries there
. I want to build a business relationship with them because the products will be using the EZ-B V4 controllers and some other components. It is a good idea to share this with EZ-Robot because their products are driving mine, and for them to understand what I am doing is very important to me. I am not saying that this product would drive them in any direction, only that it is good for them to understand what someone is doing besides what can be stated on a public forum. Richard, I will let you know when I will be at EZ-Robot. I would love to meet you and anyone else on this community in the real world.
With all of that, poor Spock is going to take a break from development. Who knows, by the time I get back to him, they may have legs out for him.
I will be getting that Ultimaker 2 that I have been talking about shortly and will be able to tell if it lives up to the hype or not. I will be working on this project a lot in my spare time, so I wont be hanging out in the community as much. I will be dropping in from time to time to see what's going on with everyone else's projects. I always enjoy reading about other people's ideas.
Boris, I will produce a PIC to interface this sensor. David kindly purchased the sensor and dev boards on my behalf - He will be sending these to me in a few days so I can start working on them.
This sensor looks to be a game changer in robotics and will add great new features to my ALTAIR robots.
Tony
Is this the same issue you posted here https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/8238
Hi Will, yes it is, I have done a lot more testing and am finding real problems with the v4 UART link and continuous serial transmission - I will post more information on my original thread in the next day or so.
Tony
Hello Tony,
if you are producing a PIC and it works, i need also a PIC.
It´s possible to get one from you?
Boris
@Toymaker
I got my cameras today. I will send yours out this weekend.
@Rentaprinta
Tony and I are using this for commercially available robots. The issue that we both have is that we don't want to give away something that we create and load onto a PIC or arduino. It kindof kills the sellability of our robots if everyone else can do the exact same thing. Tony has been kind enough to show some of the technology that he has put into his robots and I am doing the same. It's not good business to then give away the secret sauce that allows either of us to make money. While we have worked together and helped each other out, I dont have any of Tony's secret sauce in my robots, and Tony doesn't have any of mine in his. We do use similar or the same components in some areas, but what makes these components work is unique to each of our platforms.
I would be willing to pass along anything that has been given to me from the vendor, but I cant (and I suspect it is the same for Tony) give away what makes my product sellable. I will be happy to give away early versions of my software, but no longer share the the code.
I say all of this, but I am sure if you wait for a bit, someone will interface an arduino with one of these, and then it is just a matter of exporting the received serial data back to the V4.
Hi,
So i was thinking this is a "Community"
I understand also bussiness!
But now i bought a Omron Board for nothing!
I was thinking, that we (sorry i can´t programm in C+) find a solution to use this board with the EZB4.
But i know: not to much thinking!
It is community. It is sharing of ideas. It is someone getting a piece of new technology and showing what it can do so that others don't have to go spend the time and money to do so. If someone is interested, sure buy it and go to town. Its not "Make my robot work for me". There are plenty of people willing to give away what they have done and I am one of those. I wont give away my code for driving the motors that I will be driving unless I do that inside of ARC. Once in ARC I will give away everything I do. What I can't do is give away something that I program or pay someone to program that is proprietary to my company. That hurts my investor and my employees. I hope you understand.
Edited to convey the idea correctly.