Hi Everyone, I've been lurking on this forum for a while without making a post. I'm a standup comedian based in London and I'm trying to hack a teddy ruxpin much like a few other posters have done here.
I've been doing research but I'm still fairly confused.
A wee bit about me I'm used to working with software but software with a GUI. I can write CSS & HTML but that's about as far as I am with code thus far. That's not to say I couldn't learn; and I was rather looking forward to learning some code in this project but the question is which code!
I'm not amazing with my hands but I'm not averse to soldering, cutting and glueing.
I'm quite good at working through problems.
About the Project.
What I want to achieve is the following:
1. Teddy Ruxpin needs to be able to:
- Move mouth
- Blink
- Move head side to side; ideally, 360.
- Move arms up and down
- Flap arms.
- Move head up and down
Essentially everything that Waldes on this forum managed to do:
2. I need to be able to have a 'script' for Teddy Ruxpin to say and do. I will be able to talk to Teddy Ruxpin and then trigger the sentences with my iPhone or a bluetooth clicker hooked up to my Mac.
3. Teddy Ruxpin needs to blink in every 20 words or 20 seconds (however often the human blinks).
4. I need to be able to program specific blinks and mouth openings too. For instance
i)I click the bluetooth remote Teddy says hello there
- I click the bluetooth remote Teddy blinks twice.
- I wait 20 seconds without doing anything, Teddy blinks twice anyway.
5. Ideally, it would also be great to be able to talk into a microphone and have Teddy Ruxpin speak it, together with some automated movements.
The Current Situation
I bought a Teddy Ruxpin that a guy had already pre-hacked for an art project. www.afrugallery.com/sean/ I hooked it up to an Arduino Uno and some software he provided and have been successful in getting the mouth to move, eyes to blink. That's as far as I got. I bought another Teddy Ruxpin knowing that i was going to have to take on the whole thing myself if I was going to be able to customise it to my liking.
Equipment I have as of December 2014
1 x Bearduino arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/bearduino-hacking-teddy-ruxpin-with-arduino/ 1 x Arduino Uno 1 x Regular Teddy Ruxpin (unhacked) A lot of enthusiasm.
So, where do I start guys?
I have a mac but I can run Windows in a virtual environment. I make presentations during my comedy and use keynote for that. It might well be that I would need to run the Teddy Ruxpin separately from a different computer anyway; ideally my iPad I think to be honest.
I know this is a LOT to take in but I would LOVE to get any advice from you guys about where to start. I mean I literally don't know where to begin. The main thing i"m worried about is the software; I mean I know nothing about programming an Arduino. But I'm a fast learner and raring to go.
All best wishes, James
Other robots from Synthiam community
LJ's Project Grim Reaper
A's Teddy Robot
Ez-script processes faster than the servo can respond. If you give a bunch of movements with no sleep commands it will process the second movement before the first has completed.
I would wait to see what Richard comes up with, but the other thought I had was to use auto-positions where you can set delays and speed on each frame.
Alan
Amazing. Thanks so much!
One question;
I add a servo and in the settings of the servo (vertical) box in ARC I work out where the servo makes the mouth close (153) and open (176).
That's defined the minimum and maximum the servo can move, right?
So when the script asks me for a number between 1 and 100 for the RepeatUntil command, it is looking at a percentage of 23 (176-153). Is that right?
So if I say
then that's telling the servo to move the servo up by gradations of 1% until it reaches 176 (100%).
Is that right?
Sorry. Follow up question; I can't find out where I define scripts. So, for instance, I want to be able to tell him to open his mouth slowly without coding each time.
I think this is done by Auto Position but I can't find out where the info in the manual is. Any links? Sorry. I am searching.
No. Script commands don't look at the servo object definition at all. In fact, you don't need to have the servo objects in the project.
The script commands use 1-180 for position, so if minimum position is 153 and the max is 176, use those values (or something in between) in your script.
I am not in front of my computer to check. If ARC is telling you the value is between 1 and 100, it is because the documentation hasn't been updated. The EZ-B v3 used values of 1 to 100. V4 is 1 to 180.
Put a sleep(20) or something like that after the servoUp(d1,1)... However using servoSpeed command to slow servo movements would do the same thing....
If your servo position is 153 to start wouldn't you need servoDown instead of up?
Ah, no. Because 153 is mouth closed and 176 is mouth open. It's a small movement of the servo. Maybe that's my problem; perhaps it's too small a movement.
Yes. Some of the builder script functions Cheat Sheet have not been updated, alas.
Ok, but the problem is you start your servo at 153 and then ask it to go up to 100? That would be down to 100 the way I see it...
This makes more sense...
Sorry. Yes. That's my bad. I think the script cheat-sheet confused me