Introducing Alan

Not sure how to make this into a project with the slide show at the top...any one with info?

@Will.

Wow dude. That is some outstanding work. The detail is excellent and it just looks great. I can see you have put a lot of time and effort in to it. Great job. :)

Don't worry about the slideshow. There's nothing you need to do further as you have marked it as a showcase. It will generate pretty soon so give it a few hours and it will appear.

Thanks for sharing your project. I love it what you have done so far, especially the lighting very cool. This I will be following.

Great! Thanks for the info Steve.

@anthony, Thanks!

That was so cool. I love the imagination that goes into these projects. I remember when I was younger I could tinker around the house and come up with something. I am older now and its a struggle to envision an idea let alone actually find the time and resources to actually do it. Good luck with it, look forward to seeing its progress.

Wow, your experience in the film industry and robotic design has really provided you with great insight to put you here with this post and a really great idea. Waiting a month is going to be irritating but I'm sure it will be worth it.

Thanks @robohappy and Doc. I'm hoping that people of ages will be interested in this project and support the Kickstarter. Then everyone can populate the world with android heads...lol

Will, Amazing work, and your experience showing through! I like how it may later have a female option.
Can't wait to learn more. The slideshow shows when you add more pictures. Steve S ;)

@Steve, Thanks!

Very impressive, and thanks so much for naming it after me :P

Alan

@alan, my pleasure :)

@fxrtst, Wow! Looks great, it will be interesting to watch this develop. I really like the silicon mask. I'm glad to see that you copy writed it but you should also patent it and trademark it. As there are people out there who will make a quick copy of it and put it up for sale on their website, if given the opportunity. And even all that doesn't stop some of them.

Really nice job.

Yes we have TMed all the upcoming names and copy righted the intellectual property. We have a great Hollywood attorney :)

OMG! mind == blown

this is ridiculously amazing!

Yay! You're the one I wanta impress. You're the inspiration behind it.

Yay! I don't have to keep my mouth shut anymore! You know how impressed I am already. As you know, if you need any help with the programming I am here to assist. I look forward to getting one and slapping it on top of my inmoov.

Woow-ho-ho-ho! Now that's the kind of work I have been expecting to see coming from you. I'm not at all supersized this was created by you but it is way more then my simple imagination was trying to envision when you shared some your concept with me months ago. Will, this is way over the top cool. I feel very fortunate you choose to share this with us here on this forum. Wow. eek

@d.cochran, you have inspired yet another part of this guy. With your forward thinking and programming skills , you've managed to add yet another layer to the EZB experience.

@dave, buddy I couldn't wait for you to see this, you saw some very early designs and now it's up talking and looking around! Glad you like him!

Holy crap! This is it. This is the greatest most advance android I've ever seen. It was like you pulled it straight out of a freaking awsome sci-fi movie, like you hopped in a Delorian and stole it from the future, the inmoov has nothing on Alan, and ez-robot powered makes it even better, I can't wait to see more, please give us more, you are a true genius, a true professional robotisist and I see a bright future in store for you, bravo bravo keep up this amazing work your doing. =D

Will, this should win you another Emmy! I really cant wait to see more. I'm looking forward to your Kickstarter.

Fantastic job FX! Really! , blows away the inmoov

Thanks Josh

@dave if they were giving out emmys for robots id be a happy guy.

I want one - Now!

Great platform for the imagination and amazing accomplishments coming out of the EZ Robots fraternaty.

The future is truly NOW!

Well said oldbotbuilder!

A few more development shots.

First stack up of the parts into the head, including the EZB. It all fit!

Where me jaw?

Three heads are better than one. Evolution in height.

Grrrrr sideways... Any way to edit pic from forum or do I need to rotate and re upload?

Edit it in paint or something then reload it

Some questions floating in...

It's 17 inches 1:1 human scale . It's actually a bit bigger than my head.

Yes the silicone skin comes with the kit. I guess that isn't clear. All nuts/ bolts magnets etc come with kit as well

It has 5 degrees of movement.

Parts come stark white with no paint. So you can paint any color. The skin is neutral translucent so it will go along any color you paint the shell.

There will be early rewards at a higher price for a few lucky customers pre painted and assembled.

The top reward will be all inclusive head, tablet all assemble pre programmed ready out of the box.

I will have extensive video library on assembly , painting, modding, the droid.

I printed the parts on my 3D Systems Projet 1500. At 100 microns, but will reprint at 50 microns for more detail for final parts when Kickstarter is done.

THAT'S what I've been waiting for! The measuring stick has just been changed :)

Ah Rich, the only other one that got to see the early early stages. He's all grown up now :)

Man if their is a best robot award I'd vote u to win it, u are truly gifted my friend, I only wish I had the skills and talent you have, u are like my new hero of robotics well that and DJ Sures lol you guys are truly amazing and if these Alan androids ever hit the market place, you better believe ill be in line to buy one lol.

He sure is all grown up now! I had almost forgotten about the early development info you shared with me and even knowing this was in the works I didn't expect, well, this.

I knew it would be something of a piece of art but was not expecting you to blow everything else so far out of the water. Thoroughly impressed and a great thing to see to start my day!

Wow, incredible! I have been anticipating your project ever since you first teased us some time back, and it does not disappoint!

I look forward to seeing this on Kickstarter where I would certainly like to purchase a head to place on an ALTAIR EZ:1 type body.

Tony

excellent work, so well polished it more art than science. I love the silicone mask too. Two questions how long do you expect it to be before the kickstarter is up and running, and are you going to do a torso to match?

That's much better than the inMoov head!... Much better.... I wanted to ask if the eye mechanism uses standard servos? The reason I ask is that inMoov uses micro servos for the eyes which most people ditch because they are not strong enough for their purpose.... Also do you have an approx. cost and timeframe for the Kickstarter release?

It would be cool if you could design the head and neck mechanism to replace the inMoov head.... :)

@fxrtst... You are pushing the limits and the boundaries my friend! Awesome work! It is truly a work of art. Just hope I can afford one when it becomes available. I will be following this very closely.

@fxrtst OMG! I absolutely love it ! I haven't loved a device as much since the first EZ-B! So original looking! I hope no one copies it.

@fxrst

Awesome work bud. It reminds me a bit of Vision from the new Avengers movie. Great stuff...I see similarities with Inmoov but definitely WAY better than the InMoov...very sick. Looking forward to your progress, and I know how hard, time-consuming and expensive this kind of development gets so I hope you get the KS money to finish it! ;)

@Rich Glad you remembered and enjoyed the end product.

@Tony, Thanks so much for the kind words, you'll be the first to know!

@bborastero our current time line has us at release in about 6 weeks barring any more delays. And yes there are plans for an entire robot.

@Richard, No they dont use standard servos, because of the space limitation. But the micro servos I use are plenty strong and fast for the job. They have been operational for 2 years and no problem with them yet. My eye mechanism requires little power to move. As for cost we are still in the process of boiling that down. There are two parts might have to be machined and those are unknown costs. Then the duplicate molds. If I was lucky enough to get 400 to 500 units sold I want to duplicate the molds so we can get out enough parts to fill all orders in a 90 day period. So the short answer is not yet, but we are keeping the costs low by introducing it as a base kit.

@rgodon, Thanks!

@Troy glad you like him! I'm sure someone will eventually. Patents don't carry much weight internationally

@doombot, thanks very much!

I have shown a few people Alan here in Oregon and alot of people like the frame or what I call the skull portions and some said it would be sad to cover it. So I printed eye lid covers for the eyes if you want to leave the silicone skin off. That took my ideas in a whole other direction for other really cool skulls and jaws..so stayed tuned for that. Here is a pic showing the eyelid cover on the robots left eye.

@Will.

I must admit I was torn between the two designs. When I first looked at the pictures and start of the video I was saying to myself "I love the look of this". But later in the video when you added the skin, I changed my thoughts to "that's just freaky, and looks soo cool".

I do like the addition of the eyelid. The eyes have gone from having a "terminator'ish" kind of look to something much more human looking, and changes the overall character. It looks such a simple change, but makes a lot of difference. I spent ages covering one side of my PC screen with my hand comparing the two eyes, :P.

Ha, I know its such a crazy thing the brain. I have to try and jump through alot physiology. But in the end its just what looks cool to each person. My niece would have flower and girl power all over it, painted hot pink with lipstick and a wig. So it will be fun to see how people mod and make it their own!

Funny this image, lighting plays alot into it as well, if you watch the video and see him all white and moving at about 2:29 is the same android just painted white and well lit. He kinda looks scared and meek white in the video, like "give me my skin back!"

There's a setting disabled which prevents me from seeing the video in embedded browser. Can you enable that? We sent a tweet with the link but no one can watch your video.

It'll be a setting in YouTube

I looked in the advanced settings it and there is a check mark next to allow embedding. Could it be that the video is unlisted. Does it have to be public?

Or maybe its this embed link?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pyMVGzFOGv4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You have done a Great Job. Your past experience is shining. Put a set of teeth and some more A.I. and it will be Fascinating.

Wow. I don't have enough time for the one project I have going already, but i don't think I can pass this one up.

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Alan is the future ! You really have taken the giant leap. I also look forward to your release of Alan and potential other robot heads, skins and bodies.

My only feeble suggestion, is I have mentioned mounting the camera in the nose of a humanoid robot in other threads. It looks out the nostril opening. This way it is hidden. Eyes are often full of led's etc., like Alan.

Ron

Edit.. I prefer no hole in the center of the head. Will options be available?

I believe that the camera is in that circle in the middle of his forehead.

That is correct , his forehead.

Ok, you guys motivated me and i worked on the paint job today. Got it matching my color comp from previous pictures. Still needs some aging and a clear coat and a few other bits. The test skin i have on him will be a bit more translucent and more in the white and less yellow color. I like how you can see the paint job thru the skin.

Skin job

I foresee quite a few magazines calling for interviews and covering this. :)

@anthony certainly part of my thinking during design. But lots of fun going thru the color wheel !

@troy, I certainly hope so! Get some PR before the ball drops for KS!

You've got a great upgradeable product and something people can actually see working. Too many people fail at KS when they don't show a good prototype beforehand. Press on! You obviously know what you're doing!

Thanks, so many ideas. I've come up with a way to teach androids how to make facial expressions. Just need some DARPA funding for that :)

Hey you never know! Sometimes these KS can go crazy wild with funding! I will be crossing my fingers for ya. :D

Here are a couple quick color comps, funny how color affects moods and feelings

Thanks Troy, I'd love to slow down and just do this. After working in the film industry for 22 years, 100+ hr work weeks, I think I ve worked twice as much as the average joe at the end of their life. And I'm only 49! Ha!

@fxrtst, I wish I was good at CAD because you've inspired some add-on ideas I'd like to give you.

That's what I like about creating this project on this forum, having people give their ideas, input and mods for these guys. Please offer suggestions!

@fxrtst, Would it work to put the center forehead camera on a pan and tilt mount that could be synced with the eye movements?

That's what the head does. I have the eyes and head sync together with relative servo. In a human we look at something with our eyes then a split second later our head move to a similar position. So the pan and tilt of the camera is about a 1/2 second out of sync. Something I can live with. If you watch the video at 2:14-2:24 during autonomous operation, you can see what's happening there. Trust me there was a lot of thought put into the position of the camera. At one point early in the design I had a ping detector in the forehead too. Glad I did away with that design for this incarnation.

Whoo ho, got my new hi res camera straight from China! Thanks guys! ill try to test it out today!

@fxrtst Would that be the new rumored ez robot camera?

Why yes it would, but no Longer rumor!

Thank you fxrtst, I like all the color combinations, but I like the silicone mask best. Great project! Can you tell more about the HiRes camera that you received? Maybe there will be more info released later? Steve S

Thanks Steve. Me too, I will be making silicones skins in the next couple weeks to key into the final look. As far as the camera I have yet to connect it but looks like the same form factor as the v3 camera.

Hey Will... thanks... Any chance you can post a picture of the new camera when you have a chance?

Cheers Richard

Here you go in and out of case

Thanks Will... It looks identical to the ones I have... Perhaps there is a 3rd version that I have been hearing about?

This says v4 camera on invoice and that is what i ordered from the store, as it was a preorder. I heard from Josh that it looks the same. I think the camera is higher resolution. That only makes since they swapped out the camera ccd guess the rest stayed the same? What third camera are you talking about?

@Fxrtst... I heard that EZ Robot had updated the current v4 camera (the one introduced last year, not the old Bluetooth camera that was sold with the V3).... It is supposed to be more durable because people were breaking them trying to get them out of the plastic shell.... The lens was easy to dislodge when removing it... I think it had also been upgraded to higher resolution as you mentioned as well... You may very well have the new version of the V4.... Maybe Josh is right, maybe they do look identical. I have one on order too, so I'll compare it to the ones I have now and see if it is indeed a new version....

Oiy, getting old sucks, lol. My brain has turned to mush working on this android for so long. I thought it was the new camera. Now I have three old cameras. I'll watch for an announcement next time! In the mean time any one need a camera?!? Ha.

hey Will, check skype.

the best ez-robot project I have ever seen and a lot work. it looks like the I-Robot Movie robot but with a little bit more coolness I want to to buy this bust ;-)

Will,

This is EXCELLENT work, and as other have said one of the best Humanoid I seen using EZB, and just when I've starting to build a InMoov, you come along with something far superior. :)

Can't wait to see it completed!

Thanks! @cem, and @smarty

Well done this is a real piece of art. Can't wait to see it for sale

Better get your other hand ready for another award! I have a feeling you will be holding two up soon.

@mohamed and @moviemaker, thanks and lets just hope for a successful campaign!

Nothing new, just reposting to get these to the slide show at the top.

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i like the latest redesign it looks more humanoid than ever. now if only you could create the positronic brain for alan lol issac asimov would love to see this if he were alive he was awsome.

Heheh, thanks,

I created the "round" port dial (white) in the back to take out the positronic brain!

deleted post

positronic brain!....

Time to re-read my Isaac Asimov Collection We should appoint Susan Calvin to help us to develop that brain.

@fxrtst, how close are you to the open day on Kickstarter?

Can you give us a ballpark price?

Excellent work!

Can anyone tell me why alot of pictures are missing from the gallery? Pictures from page 3,5,6 were in the gallery at the top but are now missing and when Nomad posted one of my pictures that he edited it posted and went to my gallery?! Strange. Do I have to repost to get them back in there? And how do I remove Nomads image ?

@nomad, please remove the edited image you made of the mouth closed. Also please read the first page of this thread as it will tell you about the robot. No free STL. sales soon. Also there is a picture of robot red mouth closed on page 6.

@69developer, We are hoping to launch kickstarter in 4 weeks. Our website will be live soon with information before we launch. www.getaheadinrobotics.com

I'll leave info here when that site is live. As for price we are waiting to hear back from one vendor on some aluminum parts. I don't want to give a price (even ball park) until we have firm numbers.

ok going to try this and see if it sticks.

Seems to have worked....for now.

Adding a new video I shot today with new skin and object recognization. A big thank you to Dave Cochran for walking me thru the scripts.

Excellent work! Anxiously wait for your KickStarter campaign.

Roborealm (with the avm module) is awesome at object recognition... I lucked out and got roborealm while it had the option of buying the avm module too.... Too bad you can't load it on more than one computer.... What happened to the avm module and other addons when buying roborealm now?

@69developer, we have a pretty firm date now of August the 1st. For KS. Alan's website www.getaheadinrobotics.com will go live at the end of the week. Nothing new there just a launch page, and same material as here. Mostly for PR.

@richard, the AVM module is free now. . Roborealm has it on their Website for downloading. There is a nag for not using a lic version, but you can now turn that off. Before David and I were running into trouble with it not saving with robo file but that's been fixed. Not sure on support or development.

fxrtst

"There is a nag for not using a lic version, but you can now turn that off. "

I just started messing around with RoboRealm and get this every time AVM Navigator starts. Could you explain how to turn it off.

Thanks

It's under options, other tab. Close to the bottom of the screen choose silent error message.

Thanks

@fxrtst

fantastic new video <3

dont forget my camera, please :-P

Cool Will! Love the eyes.

That Roborelm really looks sweet for recognizing objects. I dont want to hijack your thread too badly but how well do you think it would work in the B9 platform? Challenges I see would be finding a hidden place for the camera and fitting in responses useing the set sound files. I guess reaction with movement would be a benefit.

@Dave, Roborealm has a component that will transfer the name of the recognized object (or any other variables within roborealm) back to ARC. It allows you to use scripts within ARC to react to the data passed back from RoboRealm. From there, you already know what ARC can do.

If you get RoboRealm and want any help with it, let me know. I would be happy to help you get things going. My email address is in my profile.

@Will, Great job on the object detection. I see that it recognized your face as well. Really good job.

Mr Cochran, excellent work you did there and takes for wanting to share with the community. Your one smart guy!

Absolutely Dave S as David C was setting up it was clear to the passing of info back and forth to the programs. I'm also always thinking of the B9 since he will eventually be finished. Roborealm is only $50 and extremely powerful. You could trigger a sound byte based on what the camera regognizes. Before Dick Tufeld died I had a lot of custom phrases done by him including telling my daughter to brush her teeth. You could trigger that sound by her walking in the room and recognizing her or set up a reminder with David's EZ-AI and have it say the same thing in the evenings at say 7 pm. All the programs working together make for an impressive AI foundation.

@dave thanks I'm starting to actually look at the scripts you posted and seeing what's happening. Getting clearer each day. Thanks again.. Btw where can I find Program O,for changing AIML files? I did a search on the computer but can't find it.

Thanks for the explanation and Will offer to help Dave. As I get closer to digging into more extreme programming to give my B9 a fuller personality and animation I'll surely try to incorporate all this. Right now I'm about 85% complete with my B9 arm design and build and close to a test fit. The major programming comes after that and the second arm is built and fitted. That's when you'll get lots of questions from me. ;)

Till then I'll not steal any more of your project thread. Thanks for the help.

@Will

either HTTP://127.0.0.1:11620/Admin or HTTP://127.0.0.1:11520/Admin I cant remember which one we used for your configuration.

robot r0b0t

@Dave, Anytime your ready, let me know.

Uau! What a piece of art! When will be possible to buy a kit? I want one of those!

We are launching kickstarter on August the 1st or before.

We just joined the community - what a great project! My son is 7 and he wants to build a mostly autonomous R2D2 - he wants it to recognize him and talk to him and follow him around (among other things). We started our research about three weeks ago and found ezrobot last week while searching for beginner kits. It seems like it could work really well for our project. Then to see this - how beautiful! Your head is an amazing design, I love the look, the quality of the voice and the words/language you have chosen - it's quite elegant. I'm really looking forward to watching your success and really getting to know EZrobot too! Thanks! Carol and Carl

Thanks guys and welcome to EZ Robots. You've made the right choice in micro controllers. DJ is commited to advancing his EZB. It's is without a doubt the EZ-ist platform to learn. Good luck with your R2. There are a few on here building droids and can give you some pointers. This is a great community with lots of helpful people.

Will, OMG! This is AWESOME!

You will have to let me know when you get things rolling! I too have dabbled with InMOOV but I'm still learning to crawl with servo motors...I also have EZB to help. I have also dabbled with Arduino and Raspian PI but both of them require you to know more about programming. EZB is so much more simpler.

Bob Jaconetti :D

YESSSS! Can't wait to pledge for this! So close to have a new friend :))

Will,

I'm coming into this late (been working on B9, plus trying to move... long story). IN any case, I will be signing up for your Kickstarter.

Alan appears (to me) like Sonny from iRobot, but he made some upgrades to himself using T-800 parts (if the other way around, we're doomed! :P). Beautiful design and workmanship, and the attention to details is amazing.

I can haz Alan droid? :D

Thanks Tex! We are getting ever so close to opening the launch site. Then a ton more video to shoot for kickstarter. Still hoping for a August 1st kickstarter!

Will,

Just my $.02 on timing: I personally feel quality trumps deadlines. So if you hit any snags (you mentioned a couple suppliers have been slow in responding), know that you will never hear a complaint from me if dates slip. Alan is well worth waiting for!

On a totally different note: it's funny how strongly color affects perception. In the different color comps, the droid looks very feminine in aqua (Alana? ).

It's going to be a lot of fun seeing how people personalize these! :D

I agree completely on color. After running with my red comp I turned photoshop on a sat and watch as my wife and kids each respond to their favorite color as I changed the hue. For my landing page video I'm turning him blue!

As for the kickstarter, we are expecting a good turn out. As the volume increases the molding costs increase to keep up with the demand/delivery time line as we duplicate the molds. We would like everyone to have received their Alan by Christmas. But again that's based on volume. If we go above 500 orders then the date would change. We start a PR and EPK at the end of this week and hope we get good coverage. More exposure = more orders. I don't think we sell as fast as Pepper the Japanese robot, but we can always hope!

PS I'm stealing Alana for our upcoming female upgrade! Brilliant!

You can use "Alana", but I get dibs on being among the first to order! :D

:) ... Deal!

Oh man, I definitely am going to have to back this! :D

Well two weeks behind on the website. Building it ourselves and running into one last issue. I have alove / hate relationship with wordpress. Hoping to be live in the next few days or so. That puts Kickstarter behind a couple weeks as well.

Until then, here are a few product shots that will be up on the site when live. Enjoy.

Oh man those shots look so clean I thought they were renders! Really excited for the Kickstarter :)

The one with the face open looks very "Westworld". Cool stuff.

Alan

@fxrtst How does the front of the face attach and hold to the the rest of the head? Are there some sort of clips that are not shown? Can you provide pics of this?

I can only hope that this work of art will be affordable, cause I definitely want one! Absolutely awesome......

still following in awe!

@rgordon, The sub skull is attached with magnets to the back of the head. Tiny very powerful magnets. This is the magnetic modular system I spoke about. It allows customers to buy new sub skulls and silicone faces to upgrade Alan to any of the other offerings of customization without having to buy a whole new head, ie female etc. The magnets make it cleaner looking without having to use screws on the outside. (Very unfuturistic looking :)

@fxrtst

Thanks.

Hey guys finally got the website up, a few hickups but its up for PR. Still a few weeks away for Kickstarter. Please report any issues you have.

Get A Head In Robotics

Will, I'm super impressed. That web site and it's content is very professional and well put together. I almost felt like I was watching a award willing documentary when I was watching the videos and browsing through the site. Your background really shows in the way you designed it all.

Thanks David. It's been a longer road than I thought it would be. Taking rest tonight and just watched you new arm video, getting very excited. Looks great!

Great job. One thing I think would be important is to offer an option that contains everything you need in the kit, such as servos, wire, battery, controller, software, etc.

Great presentation! Best of Luck. I look forward to the release.

Ron

Will, Great job on the website and videos. Also, thank you for showing some of the EZ-AI features in the video.

Good luck friend. I think you will be very successful in your endeavor.

@Will, I know it's been a long road and hard at times. Just remember that the journey "is" the reward. Your hard work is really showing off in your successes. Alan truly seems like a high end product. Very classy, well thought through and well constructed. Your web site design reflects this also. I'm very happy for you. Your going to be a big hit.

Also thanks for mentioning my B9 arm build in your thread here. Don't get too excited until I can actually get it to move in and out of the torso. I had your silicone rubber arm over it before I took that video and it looks awesome and fits just right. Your a true artisan. Just to be clear of what I mean, here's the definition of the word Artisan:

Noun: Artisan,

1. a person skilled in an applied art; a craftsperson.
2. a person or company that makes a high-quality or distinctive product in small quantities, usually by hand or using traditional methods.

That's you to the word my friend! ;)

@69developer, that will be one of the early rewards levels. They will most likely go very quickly.

@d.cochran, thanks again for creating EZ-AI for the community. It brings a new level of reality to creations like ALAN.

@dave, thanks so much for those very very kind words! It makes the pain of that journey hurt less :)

I'm so looking forward to those arms moving in and out!

Will, a brilliant job! I so look forward to hopefully buying one of your masterpieces in the near future!

Tony

Will,

For the time being, I am using a JD humanoid head to develop a prototype for personalized robot interfaces in a university/college/community college/technical college/high school computer lab environment - one bot head per PC. After proof of concept, I hope to garner some "angel investments" to proceed with full product development. At that point, I would be looking for existing human interface products such at your Alan to serve as the "point of contact" between students and the math learning system I am developing. Your expertise has already produced quite a winner for that sort of role in my product development.

I guess what I'm saying is that in a couple of months or so, I would be contacting you in order to acquire an Alan for beta testing and to price out volume purchases.

What an outstanding accomplishment you have in Alan!

Ron

@toymaker, thanks very much. Means a lot coming from you :)

@mathprof, that sounds great. I had always envisioned Alan being utilized in that environment. Feel free to use anything from our website to help procure your investments.

Website looks great. Love the video as well. So very cool!

Bob Jaconetti

Thanks Bob!

WOW! Very slick. Nice presentation.

I'm speechless. It's like Sonny from iRobot, but real.

Waiting for the Kickstarter announcement with bated breath! eek

I tried getting on you website but is shows as NOT YET AVAILABLE.

@rb550f, could you tell me what browser you are attempting to connect with?

Perhaps try with another and see.

@fxrtst the website works for me and is looking amazing.

If the kickstarter is successful, will you then prioritize extra development for the head or the development of other body parts? (I hope the first, I'd love to see a future upgrade with more facial expression possibilities)

I was able to get to your website Chrome

@rb550f, Great!

@Bas, There will be development in both directions.

Hey guys, we are currently deep into our PR mode. And want to gather as much info on blogs, magazines, google plus groups, etc, where we can post about Alan. We want a successful campaign and to do so we need to get the word out. At our current level of projections taking into account with time frames, we look to reward 400 to 500 units on this first pass.

We have already been notified by several companies who want to take over production and hand out royalties. We are not interested in that at this time. So if You can think of any tech sites etc, please post them here. We want to be very thorough to make sure we hit our goal.

Thanks in advance.

Servo magazine: http://www.servomagazine.com/index.php/contact/

Tested: http://www.tested.com/ Adam Savage (from Mythbusters) will eat this up when he finds put about it. Get him a prototype and you'll get loads of PR!

Post to The RPF: http://www.therpf.com/

Post to the Motion Picture Prop Community: http://www.themppc.com/forums/

The former two are fan sites and probably require membership (if you're not already a member). You'll probably need to post Alan as a "project" thread. Especially The RPF - not adhering to the strict guidelines can get you banned.

That's about all I can think of now... unless you want to consider skywriting? :P

Thanks we got servo magazine but others were not on out list. Thanks we will check them out.

Maybe you can try to get the word out on meetup.com groups as well. Personally I have been to the Amsterdam A.I. meetup. Especially the Singularity University group is pretty big, and across the globe.

Oh and don't forget Reddit;

/r/artificial

/r/robot

Will, servo has done an article on my robots and also there has been a couple in Robot Magazine, I have contacts in each publication, let me know if you want them or me to send an introductory email for you?

Very exciting times for Alan, you have done a fabulous job!

I have recently completed some extensive new hardware for the ALTAIR robot heads that has multiple PIC microntrollers all working in parallel. The head can do amazing amounts of things independently and puts minimal processing on the v4. This path may be of interest to you later on, if you want to make version 2 ans 3 of the Alan head.

My invention House has so far licensed 63 toy,game and gift products Worldwide, to some of the biggest companies like Mattel. If I can be of any help to you there (with advice), then let me know I would be happy to help if I can.

Tony

@bas, thanks!

@tony I'd be greatful for either a contact OR an intro by you. I've reached out to both magazines and heard nothing back. I'm sure sitting in email box with a million other submissions.

And again thank you for the compliments on ALAN. I'd be very interested in the pic controllers for future versions. Alan's head is but a fraction of the future of what I'm attempting to do. I'm developing a system to teach androids how to record and mimic facial expressions, in a live recording environment. He obviously will be a complete body as well. If Kickstarter/Indiegogo is successful we will be purchasing a large format 3d printer to continue with his body. Great plans for his future, just like Altair!

And again thank you for the offer on mentorship with licensing. When they come I will be asking a lot of questions!

And thanks everyone for the suggestions of contacts, keep them coming.

It's funny if I was promoting a make up product, I'd call up my actor friend Brad Pitt And that would be that. But here in robot/toy land I'm starting from the bottom. So any and all help is very appreciated!

Brad Pitt? I'm told quite often that I look like him....... 50 years from now. Seriously though, I'm not one to spend my cash on startups. However there are two that I couldn't wait to throw money at; EZ Robot and now your little guy here. One question though, do you plan to have some type of base available to cut down on the illusion of not having a body attached? eek That would be the first add on I want to look into. Casual visitors to my home may find him a little unsettling. I'm thinking of something quite simple like the start of a shirt or shoulders. Do you know of the busts of Will Robenson and Dr Smith? Put the ducky on them and it makes all the difference in the world. Something like that available as an add on would make it a little more family friendly and generate added income. EDIT - He does have a start of a chest but I get the urge to move my arms around in sympathy for the poor guy. Dont get me wrong and maybe I'm just looking at it wrong. He's just fine as he sits and very cool looking but for me a little more shoulder and a shirt would go a long way.

Will,

I would suggest posting to the various Babylon5 groups on Facebook (2 named Babylon5, The Observation Dome, and the Zocalo Today). Very active groups, and your connection to the show will draw a lot of faces to your kickstarter page, and some of these people spend money like water...

If there are fan sites to the other movies and shows you have worked on they might be good too (I'll bet AI and Wild Wild West fans would go for this).

Alan

Great questions. And here are several answers for everyone.

First, I designed it as a starting point for a full sized human. Certainly would not have been interesting selling his feet first! So the head was a likely starting point. It's where all humans communicate.

Next building an animatronic head for the films industry costs 10s of thousands of dollars, so creating "enough " of a head and shoulders for consumers at an affordable price meant thinking about the volume of material used in casting/molding. I went for the greek and roman type bust without the pedestal for balancing issues (the head has alot of torque and weight with the silicone face.)

Then there is the process for making them to consider. Knowing these would not be pressure injected plastic, and would be cold cast resin many factors come into play, including: the molds must fit into a 10 gallon pressure pot for curing, to create bubble free castings. A large shoulder piece would not have fit.

Finally, the "rest" of his torso and shoulders and body are designed to accept the head, neck and shoulder bit of the current Alan.

As this is a kit. I urge and encourage modifications by consumers. If ya want some shoulders to hug on in a shirt feel free to add them until the rest of the body is available! I really looking forward to see the mods people come up with!

I Want one..........maybe even 2!......1 for my InMoov certainly. looks very robust and well designed. very good job !

@Alan very good ideas. I've just posted to google plus groups reaching 500k of people interested in tech and robots.

@nano, I'm glad you like it. I'm working on the mods for the STLs on inmoov to accept my head and neck.

Will, the ALTAIR head now has a dedicated emotion PIC (part of the PIC head network) that is capable of displaying 32 different facial expressions. The emotion side of the ALTAIR is pretty cool I will do some videos soon to show all this in operation.

For servo magazine I will send an introductory email to David Geer and for Robot Magazine an email to Tom Atwood, but I need your email address so I can cc you in. My email address is toymaker(dot)tony@gmail(dot)com

Tony

@Toymaker

what is "ALTAIR head" ?

i was searching on google, but i found nothing.

It sounds interesting!

Boris

Boris, this is an early video of the ALTAIR EZ:1 head.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-oBTbvuvPY

Tony

@tony I would love to see that! That's is exactly what I'm talking about. If I can train an emotion live and record that motion, the pic could in essence activate that expression when appropriate, happy ,sad, etc? That would be amazing looking forward to video!

Thank you so much for helping and reaching out to servo magazine. I will send you my email for robot magazine! I can't thank you enough.

Will

Will,

In his current state, what is Alan's "intelligence level"? Can he hold a conversation? Can he learn?

That's a great question. I'm relying on EZ -AI. David explained that a lot of AI is dependent on databases. The more you put in the more you get out. The current software version for download doesn't have the database that his current version has. That is a whopping 300 gigs of data! So unless David is sending out hard drives with his software it will be sometime before we can see what is capable. (David chime in here and correct me if I've made a mistake.) Hes a busy guy so we will see how/when and what when he's ready. Until then here is what Alan is capable (this is like half a day of programming and experimenting)

Alan knows every family member by facial recognition and will say hello to them. (Roborealm) Building a database of objects but unsure of a use for when he sees recognizes and object. (Roborealm) Reminders, web look up, and other EZ-AI items (ez-AI). I've not had much success with EZ-AI chat bot. But ARCs works great some days with out a lag and some days painfully slow. But you are the mercy of servers Internet traffic etc. To me the chat bot is the best to make make Alan seem alive. The banter back and forth is amazing. I believe a chatbot last year passed the Turning test for the first time. Meaning the chatbot fooled the interviewer into thinking it was human. You can also build your own chatbot from scratch. Building a personality if you want. So to recap, he is learning, like faces and objects. He can carry on a conversation via a chatbot you build or using an exsisting one. As for intelligence, I think Alan is just mimicking some human behavior and not at all intelligent... Yet!

Will, Very cool! I asked because I'm puzzling on what AI direction to take with my B9. A chatbot is definitely a way to mimic intelligence - but I'm still on the fence on what chatbot technology to use. I've been playing around with a program called Ultra Hal, but it's not easily integrated with EZB. It also uses a different architecture than AIML, which is both good and bad.

I recently came across an application called Program O, which allows/is (I believe) a chatbot server installation on a local machine. That allows you to use a standard AIML chatbot.

The ultimate goal here is to get an Alan, and get him and B9 in a conversation together. Should be interesting!

Program O is what David has incorporated into EZ-AI. I should clarify, my issue with chatbot on EZ-AI is that voice recogician doesn't work well with it on my system. It works great with everything else, just doesn't seem to understand what I'm saying. Perhaps I need to spend more time with Program O , by downloading some AIML files?!?

I'd like to see Alan and B9 talking back and forth! Fun.

Tex, I'd love to use AI or the Chatbot with my B9 also. However the limitation I see is the actual voice of B9. To me, if he's not talking in Dick T's voice then he's really not B9. Sadly we only have so many voice files with Mr. Dick's voice. The chatbot would work great but not with the voice of "The Robot". Is this something your's willing to do without?

Dave is right then we end up right back with limited vocabulary with Dick. Too bad he is not still alive. The company I bought Alans voice has a process where after like 4 hours of recording they can create digitized voice from the recordings, I believe its cerepoc.

Custom TTS is neat, I looked into it once and its cost a few years back was around $100k - but it does work!

Here is a TTS President Obama

www.cereproc.com/files/bho_ad.wav

Here is Arnie

www.cereproc.com/files/aas_ad.wav

Ceraproc now do low cost voice cloning that costs around £500

www.cereproc.com/en/products/cerevoiceme

Tony

I don't want to derail the thread with B9 stuff, but to answer a couple musings: a custom voice would cost about $10K. Enough voice samples of The Robot exist that it could be done (I checked into it!). The possible hurdles: permission from the Tufeld estate and/or Kevin Burns to duplicate the voice, and (of course) the $$$.

I'm also investigating a way to modify a synthesized voice to sound like The Robot. While the inflection and emotion won't be there, the "image" will be. It's in development, so I won't know for a bit if it's a total disappointment.

EDIT: I just read Tony's post the Cereproc can do a voice for under $1000 USD! That could be a game-changer.

If they can do Arnold and Obama from existing material (news and interviews etc) i bet if everyone whose purchased recordings from Dick over the years pooled them together we would have enough material to do it. But as you say there would be the Tufeld family and Kevin to get approval. The $1000 is not an issue. Be very interesting to find out how much information they need to create the database.

My inquiries were back in June 2014. Turns out it was with Cereproc; at that time they quoted me $11K to create an HTS voice using recorded data. I had sent them a sample, which they said would work fine - as long as they had enough variation. With the hours and hours of recordings, that part isn't a problem. The problem is the ownership issue - but because I don't have a spare $11K lying around, I didn't go much further. We can discuss this over on the B9 board - I've derailed you enough here.

OK, let's get this thread back to Alan: I'm really happy that his AI uses Program O. Maybe once things get rolling, we'll be able to pool/share databases to help Alan "grow".

As for the recognition: what if the input was via a (wireless) microphone? That would cut down on background noise.

I always had imagined Alan being in the cloud, so all the people with Alan could share their programming and the AI learning part. I again believe that David had talked about that as well.

As far a s recognician, the issue is specific to EZ-AI. When used with windows and ARC, it works incredibly well and very accurate. So not sure whats happening. Although I am using ver1.0.0.5 (current is 1.0.0.7) so might have been some fixes in there. I also get alot of .net errors and have to restart things, but again it might be i have an older ver.

Yep, old version. There are still plans for the cloud. My direction has changed a bit though. There are a lot of technologies that are pushing a lot of things toward the cloud that I am leveraging in Rafiki. Once that is done, there will be a free version (still EZ-AI) but it is a complete rewrite to be platform agnostic. Give me a few months and I should have pretty much all of the features of EZ-AI able to run on an arm processor single board computer. From there, we will then start getting things to work on a PC platform. I expect it to take a couple of weeks to iron out any bugs but, very good things are coming for EZ-AI.

I have a team of 3 developers working on nothing but this now while I do the other things necessary to release a product. You know how that goes.

Wow that's impressive and exciting Dave!

still following with interest and awe!

Just a small update. We have had alot of interest in ALAN from different sectors. We were contacted by a couple of companies interested in licensing. At this point we still want to move forward with crowdfunding.

We have decided to go with INDIEGOGO instead of Kickstarter. There are alot of reasons, but one is the ability to do hi res 1080 videos for the opening. Something Kickstarter does not yet support. We think Alan looks great and we want to display him in high detail. Another reason for the change is they seem to represent a different kinda tech start up companies than Kickstarter.

We are still working on the video and when done we will release. We want a August date, but might be September if we cant get one part of the video finished because of a sliding date.

Oh and as a side note, thanks to Toymaker (Tony) for a connection he has at servo magazine. They might be featuring ALAN in a column. Thanks again Tony. He is simply the best and we are lucky to have him hear with us!

Adding a few of the press images that have been going out.

what do you mean "Nothing exciting" everything about Alan is exciting.

Will, no problem I am really glad that I could help. The new pictures look awesome!

A fantastic new option for ALAN would be the B5T Omron sensor, that me a David are looking at, it could add so much new functionality - maybe worth looking at for a possible upgrade or ALAN ver.2?

When I start working with the B5T, I can let you know how it all goes.

Tony

Thanks Tony, I watched Daves video on it. It absolutely has my head spinning. I'll be very interested to see how it develops! I have a very interesting use for that system! Anyone know what the street price will be for it?

Will, the one off price for the UART board (thats the only board you will need if its connected to a dedicated microcontroller) is around $200. The cost for volume purchase would greatly reduce this cost, possibly below $100 and if it is possible to purchase direct from Omron then this cost would reduce much further as you would not have the distributor mark-up. To me the B5T offers so much that even the full $200 cost is still viable as it would lift our robots abilities to levels that we could only dream of a few months back.

Tony

More and more sensors are released that partially process data (like the B5T). At the same time we see cloud services coming up that allow you to process data remotely (like Emotient's web API). Both options seem to drop in price as time progresses.

Personally, if budget allows it, I would prefer cloud based services. First of all it seems that Alan's head is already quite full with electronics. Second, to me it seems that it is easier to combine multiple cloud services compared to combining these hardware based sensors. Third, a webservice can be more easily updated and modified.

@fxrtst, I'm always impressed with what you are doing. I'm sure you will reap rewards for your efforts! I love all the color possibilities you've done too.

@Bas Testerink. thats interesting I was not aware of any cloud services that can do what the single B5T does (functions listed below) - can you gives some links so I can check the services you refer to out and what they would cost? Thanks.

Face recognition Face detection Facial pose estimation Estimation of facial expressions

1. Satisfied
2. Unsatisfied Five different emotion expressions:
3. Happiness
4. Surprise
5. Anger
6. Sadness
7. Neutral Human body detection Gender estimation Age estimation Gaze estimation Hand detection Blink estimation

This service would also need to do all of this for up to 20 items of each and need to be able to report back the position of each.

I think the best approach is to use a multitude of sensors and services in conjunction. The services should be used to get access to multiple forms of data or perform analysis on data that is provided. The sensors should pickup the local environment to supply the services with the data needed to perform the analysis. These services could be cloud based or local on the device depending on the need of the service. Also, speed is a consideration. For example, if you need to do recognition, you need to be able to perform this recognition pretty quickly. Taking an image from a camera, passing it to the local device, which then sends it to the internet for processing, waiting for this processing, and then getting the data back is much slower than the sensor handling these functions and just passing back the important data. There are also network considerations. Undue network traffic isn't a good thing when you are dependent on this network traffic for other services. Also, you have to consider what happens when your network is down. Does this make your device useless all of the sudden?

There is a lot that goes into designing a good solution.

Maybe I'm at the point in my life that technology has passed me by but the "Cloud" seems a little to much of a gamble for me with a lot of things. I don't totally know what happens to information once it's sent off and where it goes to. I may be way off here but what happens if the company (or where ever your information goes) ends up shutting down, goes out of business or makes a change that makes your connection useless? Don't you end up with a pile of good looking junk that you've worked tons of hours on and shed blood and tears over? I just can't get behind placing my trust in some phantom hard drive and ghost computer that may be over seen by a pail faced teenager recluse living on his parents basement in South America (do they have basements in South America?). This may sound paranoid or unlikely but can anyone promise something like this wont happen? Nobody seems to be able to answer my fears or even care to think this through. We live in a throw away world nowadays. Maybe that's it. People get board or things become obsolete so fast and we move on.

Personally, (admitting my limited knowledge) I feel the cloud is OK to store things on that aren't to critical as long as you have local backup. Cloud processing? Well, maybe if it's not mission critical and short trim. For things I want to keep or keep running I'll trust my own equipment and storage, thank you.

Just my thoughts and fears. ;)

@Will, I think your making some real great choices and moving in the right direction. I'm excited to see where this takes you. I'm honored you are letting us be a small part of this. :)

Great point Dave! I also see big problems with Cloud processing - when you have a large robot depending on all this cloud processing and the link fails (which it will) you either have a big hunk of robot that is useless or even worse dangerous. I personally believe that we should never get away from local processing with independent sensors and (some) onboard intelligence - thats the way I design my robots.

The cloud does have fascinating possibilities though, say their were a few thousand ALTAIR's out their all with cloud linked learning, where you teach your robot something and then all the ALTAIRs can then do the same function - this is possible now and I have already done this with my Ai ARIEL where 3 separate people are teaching her at different locations, different things, but what she learns is then available to all 3 of us. This is very cool, but what happens when their are thousand of users out there and one teaches the robot to something bonkers like wield a knife etc, it gets dangerous. I know our robots of today cannot do the mechanical part of this easily, but we are not far off from the time when they will have the mechanical capabilities.

Tony

I feel the same as Dave S. and Tony. If you entrust your data to a "cloud" without having a local backup and that cloud dissapates (business reasons or tactical), you are stranded. I have too much of a Mulder-like paranoia; I'll keep my data local, and obtain as many processors or drives as it takes to accomplish what I need. If my Alan require it, he'll wear a backpack with extra processors and hardware. Whe Skynet becomes active, he'll help me fight rather than turn on me.

There was a story - I believe it was "When the Machine Stops" - that was about a society that was so dependent on automation that one day when the power failed, people sat in their homes and died because they couldn't care for themselves.

Technology is wonderful - but it's a tool to be used, not the other way around.

Whew! That got a bit heavy. Sorry eek

Wow woke up to some great conversations! @bas, I would love to see where this takes us. I think as Internet and maybe even cell service reaches giga bit speed might make some applications viable on the cloud. It will be an interesting area to watch develop.

@troy thanks for the kind words and the support. There are days where I wake up and say this is never gonna work, I'm never going to reach the goal, or there's not enough exposure, or? But waking to support like that really keeps the hopes up! Thanks!

@d.cochran, yeah its alot of info to be processed, maybe it is a hybrid of the two like you suggested. I think alot of depends on whats in development and how it utilizes the data. Each device might be different.

@Dave S, i here ya on that and the cloud, it is a very ambigous concept. Who and where is that data being stored. It seems that if you put a fluffy name to a new technology like "cloud", it seems benign and people won't question. And thanks for the Kudos!

@toymaker, Thanks for the data on pricing for the B5T sensor. I think this would be amazing for our robots! With the speed of evolving technology and the length of time it takes to get to market, it seems you can continually evolve a product, increasing the capabilities! Exciting times!

Out of curiousity, I know the B5T has some unique features, but has anyone experimented with the additional Haar Cascades that can be added to the ARC camera control?

@jeremie Is it possible to create custom Haar cascades for facial expressions?

@toymaker, @d.cochran, @dave, @warpig: A lot of well-founded concerns I think. Cloudservices rely on your connection, without it your machinery is not operating properly. Also the dedicated sensors and local processing probably outperform whatever you can find as a service.

I'm am a software guy. For me it is easier to build a larger software system rather than expanding the hardware configuration. If I have an Alan standing in my house I want it to operate whenever I talk to it, without having a computer running 24/7 in my apartment. Hence my setup would probably be to turn my A.I. software in a cloud service and run it on some rented cloud processing power. Alan can then obtain all required input from the wifi router. The ezb4 would be permanently plugged in.

3rd party services I might use are the ivona voice service and perhaps emotient (though I haven't really looked close at it). Also I'm wondering what frameworks like IBM's Watson platform may offer in the near future in terms of cognitive computing services.

My downtime per year is about 5 hours on average. My privacy would be decreased as Alan will share privacy sensitive data to the cloud which may be intercepted. But I can live with that risk. Alan won't be an life-depending system. I see it as a piece of art and entertainment. If a cloud service stops, I can look at alternatives/use some 3rd party local software or perhaps even homebrew. Finally, data can be backed up locally or across two cloud parties if necessary. The chance of losing everything is then about as high as losing the data in the cloud and simultaneously having a fire in your local storage area.

Hey Bas, As far as Watson goes, one of my devs is up to his ears in it. It is really cool and cognitive reasoning and learning is being done there. There are costs associated but they are very minimal for a single person or household. If you stay with java it is pretty much free. Check out BlueMix. I am debating on becoming an IBM partner for Watson but I need to look over the paperwork involved.

Anyway, I too am a software person, about 23 years of programming experience. I understand where you are coming from. If I were building something for myself, I would look at software driven systems. Something that I can write and take care of for myself for only myself is one thing and those are nice times. Once you go beyond that, there are a lot of other considerations.

I have no problem with the cloud but I also know how to tell what is going out of my network to the cloud. I also understand concerns about privacy. It is something that will be going away soon I am afraid. IoT will make a lot of great advancements but there are a lot of security issues that come with it.

Anyway, Alan is going to do great Will. I think you have something really cool going on and I cant wait to see it go live.

I don't know. Are we hijacking this thread with all this talk of cloud-based vs local processing? I thought I'd ask before throwing in my two cents worth.

While it pertains, I do feel like it has been hijacked. That is the reason for my last statement. It is good to see conversations of how people plan to use Alan and so I do think it pertains.

I think Will will jump in if he thinks we're hijacking the thread. I think the cloud discussion is valuable. It's nice to know if Alan's future AI will be in the cloud, local, or a hybrid of both - that will help set my expectations of what I'll be doing wiyh him.

Bottom line for me though is I'm ready to support this project!

Question for Will: after Alan is launched, is there going to be an Alan forum at the getaheadinrobotics.com site, or will continue discussion here?

Alan is only hardware. There is no software or robot controller that comes with it. That is entirely up to what you want to do with it. This is the last that I heard anyway. Maybe it has changed but I don't think it will.

Absolutely keep discussing on topic or not, it does keep my gears a turning! I've loved all the discussions, comments and questions!

@warpig, there will be a forum once he's released. I also am planning an extensive video library on assembling every component, another on creating mods like LEDs, and extensive painting videos, etc. the forums will allow for personal trouble shooting, upgrade suggestions and so on.

@d.cochran just wanted you to know, EZ-AI is mentioned on nearly every paragraph of my servo magazine article! Ha! Your gonna have a ton of users. I just released info on Facebook today and the people went crazy... Looking very very good!

Watson and Bluemix are fascinating!

Hi Will, I have tried to find you on Facebook with no success, can you give more details so I can connect. Thanks

Tony

@fxrtst

Thanks for the mentions. It is very kind of you. I can't wait to see the article.

@toymaker, I'm looking for you as well. Nothing. What email do you have connected to your Facebook account? I believe mine is the same we have been using to email each other back and forth.

There may be some confusion as to whats happening with ALAN, so ill take this time to explain the crowdfunding process for those that don;t understand.

First it looks more like we will indeed go with Indiegogo.

Alan is in prototype mode right now, meaning we have a working prototype. When we start the Indiegogo process it will be live for 30 days. During the 30 days, people then offer "rewards" and "perks" for "donations". In the early years, it was designed to help someone make a film, etc and you could donate to help them achieve that goal.

Today people offer complete products, like Alan as the "rewards". You usually get discounts off what will be the sticker price, plus one of the first people on the block to have one.

To make all this happen I have had to sit down and budget out everything that needs to molded, materials, tools to be purchased and so on. The list is enormous. Then I have to add in wages, the time it will take to build everything , shop over head, on and on .....so loosely this number becomes your "goal"on Indiegogo, that is the minimum of what it takes to tool up and finish all the orders.

Lets say that number is $125,000. If you meet your goal or go over then ALANs are on their way. If not, if you fall short, then there will be no ALAN's using this venue. And we have to start all over again and rethink our strategy.

Hope this helps

I've also had a question about the servos used on another thread and i'd like to keep them all together so we don't have duplicate questions.

ALAN, has 5 axis of motion, two neck servos and one jaw servo and two for the eyes.

The jaw servo is a standard servo, altho because its dragging on the silicone I suggest a stronger servo running at higher voltage. (Alan is designed to work at 7.4 volts.)

The two eye servos are the micro size. I think i tried about 3 different kinds and in the end speedy servos were more important than torque, to get realist fast eye motion.

The most important are the neck servos. Now quick story here, Early in development i tried to make all the servos stand in size. The head is just to heavy and everyhorm would just strip out. So I looked for a cost effective, larger servo.

I went with 1/5th scale as it had torque up to 560 oz/in, I ended up designing the neck around a Chinese servo called the Power HD 1235MG. It had to have a metal gear and horn to take the weight and torque of the head and silicone.

These servos can be purchased for $40 each on ebay. I will eventually sell an upgrade kit that will use the Savox SV-0236MG , but this servo runs at about $100 each and I have to find the extra 10 mm of room in size, that will be a problem in the neck.

Mind you the PowerHD servos are power hungry and stall torque can be as high as 9 amps each. So we are still looking for the perfect power supply for him. Lipos can be used but you are limited the time they last.

Very helpful.

Thanks, Will.

Just an update. We are spending a little more time creating additional tiers of rewards before we launch Indiegogo. This has slowed down the launch of the campaign, due to gathering and pricing of additional hardware that will ship with the upper tiers containing complete kits. Our current launch date is now sometime in the last week in September.

To all those interested in Alan, thanks for the wait!

ALAN has his own Facebook page. Be sure to head over to like and share!

https://www.facebook.com/Robomodix

I like(d)! :P

Thanks Dave!

Ok so I have to get ugly here.

I have no idea how this gallery works but I complained awhile back about this when nomad posted an image and it went into my gallery.

Frank Lopez (who has now renamed himself J11 for some reason) came here uninvited to tout his work and then came crying that I had used his work without his permission, I'm assuming he means he thinks I placed his work it in my gallery. I have sent him a private email asking him to remove his posts and therefore his image from the gallery. Absurd.

So @DJ can you tell me why does the gallery place any image from anyone in a project? wouldn't it make more since that the author of the project is the only one who can place images in the gallery?

Deleted

Sorry I don't have the permissions to remove the image but I believe if @J11 simply edits and deletes his photo in his post it should be removed from the gallery.

Edit #1

I think I can repost 9 of my pictures and it will boot his picture out of the gallery as it only holds 10 images at a time.

Edit #2 Worked

That sounds like the best option. Also, block his emails. Clearly he is unreasonable and irrational.

Quote:

So @DJ can you tell me why does the gallery place any image from anyone in a project? wouldn't it make more since that the author of the project is the only one who can place images in the gallery?

@ jeremie no author would accept that whoever adds elements to its work without its agreement. It is obvious that if the system allows anyone to add photographs in the project of someone else, that will cause a lot of frustration. Hopefully the forum admin will get the permission to fix the issue.

Will, your presentation skills blow me away. I'm so glad your using your Oscar willing talent and experience in the way your offering this android. I think the way your showcasing him is going to make the difference. You have a truly mind blowing robot here to sell but no one will know it if the presentation is common or sub par. Wow, there's no way you can loose.

Just wondering, I've seen a few different skin colors on the face. Are you going to offer different colors based on race? What about voice choices, language or accents (is that even possible)? A Jamaican android would be so over the top. :P

@Aerius,

Limiting images and videos to just the OP would seriously reduce any interaction of ideas and understanding of processes. Anyone really following the thread or even reading the posters comments made along with the inserted image can easily understand what is happening. If you go that route you may as well just lock out any interaction with the community in a project showcase. I think any limitation of the exchange of ideas would be a true mistake. As is, I don't see any issue to fix.

The only issue that could effect any project showcase would be an abusive poster. This has happened in the past the admin has removed them from the forum.

Just my opinion. :)

@Dave,

I disagree. In a normal thread, you are of course correct, anyone should be able to post whatever they want, but a Project Showcase should "belong" to the original poster. If the forum didn't push the latest pictures up to the top of the showcase, my opinion might be different, so there are clearly multiple possible solutions to the issue, but fxfrst should not need to keep adding his pictures back into the thread just to have the showcase display "Alan" vs someone else's pictures.

(the other) Alan

@Alen, I see your point and do understand where you guys are coming from. However I just hate to see exchanges of ideas shut down. If the biggest complaint is what image is showing as the Showcase then there is a simple solution (Hopefully as I don't know what would need to be changed in the coding of this forum). I think a good solution would be to have an option for the OP of a Project Showcase to be able to chose one pic or video thumbnail as a Showcase Display. That would give us the power to show off the best or latest example of our robot and not limit creative interaction. I've often wanted to change the picture that shows on my one and only project showcase and cant seem to figure out how to do it. I also don't want to or think I should have to hack around to do this.

I'm going to start another thread asking EZ Robot to take a look at doing this. I dont want to divert Will's project more then we already have. Sorry Will. Back to your Android. :P

@Dave, Yes there will be many colors and even different genders offered if the campaign is successful. There will be an online store offering these products and eventually upgrades to parts to make more movements like brows and lip movement just to name a few. Because its a kit we are encouraging people to customize, the voices will be any SAPI5 voice the user has or purchases separate from ALAN and used with Windows.

Thanks for the Kudos on the presentation, I'm glad people are responding well to it!

@dave pt2. I agree with a standard thread, but disagree on a project thread, altho if changes were made where if someone posted a picture in your project and it DID NOT go into the gallery images would be acceptable. As an example as it is now, if I goto your B9 project page and post a picture of my grandma, it will show up in your gallery. Something I think would take away from what you have displayed there?!?

@Alan and Aerius, yes you guys get it, thanks for supporting me on this.

Now all this said if i had been dealing with a rational person, when i asked him to remove his image to remove it from the gallery as I did with NOMAD, then this would be a slightly muted issue. But because he is not rational or sane, it escalated into a fury of emails threatening to steal the designs of ALAN and reproduce and I quote:

"i think i will take all of those pictures and work my magic remake alan here using AutoCAD and Photoshop 3D print him and use one of those stupid ez boards with its free software "

And to that Frank Lopez...my attorneys will be calling you soon.

@Will.

I just checked out Alan's Facebook page and "Liked" it a lot. I showed this thread to some friends who came over for the weekend, and they were blown away when I showed them the pictures and played your videos for them. I left a short comment on the Facebook page saying something which I stand by... This is not just a wonderful interactive robot, but it really is a work of art as well.

Steve.

Thank you so much Steve! I really appreciate that!

@fxrtst

will - Any updates or progress ?. are we still looking at a september release date ?

We are hoping! Working feverishly, making our daily deadlines. I'll know better in another week.

Man.. You're a genius artist! I want so much one of these "ALAN" ! Just can't wait to get it!

Thank you tevans!

Two face...

This is the one I prefer :)

Another update. Do to obligations on a world premier event for the release of my last film "Goosebumps", I am once again delayed with ALANS release on crowdfunding. Most likely a mid October release. This is the last delay.

You should make the "two-face" mask more ragged and re-install the "lidless" eye panel. Then light it up red for a Terminator...

We will anxiously await Alan's release. Good luck with the premiere!

Last update before the release. Wayyyyy behind schedule, but what can you do? Down to the final editing and some green screen fun. Still a lot of elements to get it all together. We are releasing Halloween! How very apropos for what I do for a living?! Anyways, here is a dramatic shot, from one of our locations for the shoot.

"I don't always look at my robot and backyard at the same time, but when I do I drink coffee!"

LOL, had to do it. The photo look awesome, Alan looks awesome. You seem to have a very, very cool job and work on the coolest stuff! I'm super excited to see the Alan kit in the future!

Ahahaha that's perfect! And thanks!

Genius at work!

I was wondering the model and make of printer that you used to print these items up with.

Thanks,

Mel

@moviemaker, I used 3d systems projet 1500. It's a dlp printer and uses uv resin. It's my own personal printer. It produces parts at minimum thickness of 100 microns. If Kickstarter is successful I will have it reprinted at a service bureau at 50 microns to gain even more detail from my original 3d design.

Wow! That is Wonderful.

As we head into our last week of prep for ALAN campaign on Kickstarter (no really Kickstarter) we ended up with this amazing article in servo Magazine. Again a massive thank you to Tony Ellis for hooking me up with David Geer!

Congratulations!

Thanks...timing could not be better.

That is awesome! Good job Will!

Thanks David!

Wow, you're a star now! Oh, wait, you already were.

Lol, congrats! ! :)

:)

Also wanted to say "Congrats!" to you Will, making the cover of a magazine is no small feat!

Looking forward to the Kickstarter!

Thanks Jeremie! Plastered the article with EZ-Robot... And David EZ-AI has a couple of mentions too!

Will, front page that is fantastic! This is one of the best front covers that I have ever seen, well done.

I am so glad I was able to help you here, David Geer is a great guy who I knew would see the great innovation in Alan.

Tony

That is really cool Will, I'm so pleased for you. The front cover is looking great and has done "Alan" and yourself proud.

Great Job.... Your efforts and hard work is coming together and getting out there. We all look forward to the Kickstarter.

Best of Luck !

Ron R

Congratulations Will! Your talent is endless and is so great to have an artist like you sharing time and knowledge with us. Alan will be a success. Just can't wait to jump into the campaign!

Thank you guys for all the great words of encouragement and support. I'd like to again, thank Tony E, David C, Anthony and DJ for helping out directly with Alan. Its been an unbelievably long en-devour. It took twice as long to get to this point than I thought it would. But we have had some amazing talks with some investors and backers and we have some really amazing upgrades and advancements coming up right after the campaign ends. We also have some really cool new robots in development.

We are still sticking with a Halloween launch, but depends on how long Kickstarter takes to screen the submission (hopefully not long).

Will,

CONGRATS on scoring a cover-page article!

What's especially cool is that servo mag has pretty much ignored EZ-Robot. I've been a subscriber for a few years, and I can't remember EZ-Robot ever being mentioned.

Can't wait to jump on the Kickstarter offering! :D