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
Mikej's First Look At The Upgraded Model
Jason's Roli Time-Lapse Video Robot
The lipos that are in the ez robot's are 1300mah... For Teddy (since you have more room) maybe get a larger capacity LIPO... 2200mA or so? It's really up to you, but a larger capacity battery will give you longer runtime... If you buy a lipo make sure you get a lipo charger as well. I usually get those kind of things off of eBay...
Great! Would this guy work? http://www.robotshop.com/eu/en/37v-2000mah-lipo-battery.html
And this charger? http://www.robotshop.com/eu/en/18w-lipo-battery-charger-eu.html
I presume I can run the starter kit from the mains or USB when I'm at my desk, right ? Can I just plug the Li-Po battery straight into the kit?
Those two should work together no problem...
To run servos you really should use a battery like a lipo... You can (if you can find one... best from eBay) get a 10amp (or larger) 7.4V power supply so you can run Teddy off of mains (as you Brits call it...
)
to run of mains, you will need a power adapter, and most available don't provide enough amps to run servos without browning out. USB doesn't provide enough amps. Best is to run off the battery. Get two so you can keep one charged while using the other if you are worried about downtime while you work on it.
The developer kit comes with a 6 AAA battery adapter. If you put NiMH Rechargeable AAA's it will be 7.2v so will be similar to a 7.4 LiPo as far as performance. I like Eneloop rechargeables.
Alan
Oh, great. It comes with a battery pack adaptor? That's fantastic. So I might not need to buy the lipo above, right?
The battery and charger I mentioned above fit the bill re 10amp?
I suspect I didn't pay enough attention at school on the day we did Amps, Watts, Current, Voltage .
If you use rechargeable niMh AAs then you won't need the lipo, but you will need an niMh AA battery charger... Battery chargers are different from power supply's .... power supply's will not charge batteries, but they do replace them....
That battery is too low voltage, and pretty low amps too. You want a 2S LiPo (7.4 volts) with a minimum of 1300 mah (which you can get from EZ-Robots) although since you probably have the room in the bear, you could get a bigger one and it will last longer. The charger is OK. It would take a little less than 2 hours to charge a 1300 mah battery, longer for bigger ones.
Using NiMH AA's in the included battery pack, you won't get very long life, particularly if you are running the servos a lot, but it is enough to get you started, and they are relatively cheap, so you can keep some charged while using others.
Last thing you want though is your battery to die in the middle of a performance, so going bigger is probably better.
Alan
Great
could you recommend one from the shop here; http://www.robotshop.com/eu/en/ ?