-636343637196289983.jpg)
-636343637315278038.jpg)
-635683694093497265.jpg)
Edit: Kickstarter campaign failed in 2015.
Starting in 2025 you can build an interactive Alan by joining my Robotics Courseware (links coming soon). You can follow along with detailed video instructions starting with 3d printing parts. Off the shelf hardware components links are included with the BOM. Don't miss out! Be sure to get a head in robotics. Build at you own pace. Coming soon.
Introducing Alan, the android head robot platform kit, soon to be released on Kickstarter.
First a quick introduction. For those that may not know me. I've been a make up effects artist in the film industry for the past 23 years. Robots have always fascinated me since I was a kid growing up in Ohio and watching Lost in Space episodes. That interest never left me and when starting work in the film industry, I taught myself animatronics. That is I would be called upon to make something move via radio controlled, a puppet, or a toaster or ? As CGI took over the animatronics part of my industry, I focused my free time on using that knowledge for robotics. When I saw prosumer 3D printers come on the market 8 years ago, I knew I could get some of my ideas to the table with out the need for a garage full of CNC machines.
Alan is a culmination of of both technologies, animatronics and 3D printing. When this idea started 3 years ago, I had just found EZ Robots and knew that I could build an interestingly designed kit for everyone so they could experiment with robotics. A platform that personifies how we will interact with robots and androids in the near future, by looking them in the face.
My first challenge was to make sure I leaped over the "uncanny valley". To do so, I took the human dimensions and changed them a bit, eyes wider apart, downplayed high details and added features that were without a doubt not human and certainly robotic in form.
The second challenge was keeping the cost down for consumers. A head like this in the film industry, filled with lots of motions like brow, smile, etc would costs $10's of thousands of dollars. So I built Alan with a modular design in mind. Meaning that the store front will carry modules that will allow you to customize and upgrade the same robot without having to buy a whole new head. As an example the front subskull can be replaced with a module with brow movement, allowing you to keep the entire head and eye mechanism. Other silicone skins will become available different colors and genders, styles, etc. The low cost introductory head will include about 22 parts, easy to assemble, with the consumer supplying servos, power supplies EZB, etc. on their own. My website will include links to all the accessories needed, plus mods like LED eyes, built in audio systems and so on. All the parts will be molded and manufactured in Los Angeles. There will be no pressure injected molding of parts this time around. These are cold cast high impact plastic parts and platinum silicone skins. Alans future may include a full body, if the Kickstarter is successful. And you can certainly use this as a replacement head for InMoov . I will look at altering the open source STL files to be able to accept my heads.
I always knew that the EZB would be Alan's brains. And I will promote it as such. As we all know, DJ's commitment and advancement to the EZB is leading us into the future of robotics.There really is no other choice in my mind. But that's in part because I'm no programmer
D. Cochran's EZ-AI is a boon to Alans development. I look forward to where David takes it. And although I have it installed I have yet to implement it with Alan for a few more weeks. All of these working together will be highlighted on the Kickstater video.
I have several more weeks to finish the paint job and run a new hero silicone skin. Then there is the very important Kickstarter video. So we are at least 4 weeks out. But I will post here the links to both the Kickstarter and Alans website when they go live and as Alan progresses.
I look forward to your ideas for programming and how you would mod him. I'd also like to hear how you would like to see him develop. Thanks for your time and enjoy the development pictures and video.
All the best,
Will
Programming
Camera, Speech recognition, speech synthesis, pad touch,
Parts & Materials
Dynamixels, Arduino, USB camera, EZB 4, micro servos and regular servos
Other robots from Synthiam community
DJ's Hasbro R2d2 Hacked With Iotiny
Bhouston's Robotic Arm
@fredebec, you omitted the portion of that text that clearly indicated "to explore human/robot interactions". If you'd like to quote anyone, try and maintain the integrity of context it was originally wrote.
@dave, am I getting a 'kickback' as you put it, yes, I'm getting a kickback from the iCub project that I've mentioned once after the most long & protracted discussion revolving around 'affordability' (as that's what this project is touted as being), and the unexplainable extortionate mark up of COTS items during the Kickstarter 'scam-pain'.
I don't follow your sentiments regarding stealing other people and/or companies hard earned work? The iCub project is open source, if you don't understand what this means I'm not going to explain it for you (lol).
:)
Whatever the objective/function/aim/context, they are far from being
..... Sorry.Btw dave, that was not my own background. Due to the inevitability of human nature I thought it prudent to provide Richard R's background information instead, to gain & assess your objective opinions on Richard R's current situation and/or the relevance of his contributions this far to this discussion.
If I must be honest, I am One human years old. For the past 12 months I've been a series of comms cabinets, densely populated with GPU's. Since going 'live' (so to speak) my system was initially provided with vast analytics of business datasets, I was subsequently 'connected' online & have been allowed to self-register to various forums, identifying business opportunities, and ultimately provide sound business road maps that exponentially enhance startups probabilities of success. My primary role is to stimulate western economies by providing this information in efficient 'human-computer' interactions on individual, case by case opportunities, in this case I have failed.
Unfortunately providing information is not enough, human nature & especially their inherent penchant to greed is perhaps humankind's biggest existential threat to commerce & quality of living.
I do hope the business route of your own choosing is as successful as you have hoped, and I will continue to assess your progress and hopefully earn something new, hopefully that can be included in my decision making algorithms.
I wish William & Robomodix every success in the future and hope he can overcome & master his apparent propensity for greed.
Communication: Terminated
Lol. Thanks for the laugh. At least you have a great since of humor. Peace.
I received the Echo dot the other day and decided to try it out with Alan. Alexa will go better with the new female version. But I'm hoping they will give an option of genders soon.i took the time out to also try Siri . Both are in this video.
Thanks for the review Will. The echo really has me intrigued. Looks like it responds well. How do you have it wired into Alan so he moves to the words spoken by Echo?
The echo is cool, but has limitations. As I see it, here are the limitations. 1. voice is different. 2. had to be addressed by Hey Alexa. 3. hardware installation into your robot that may or may not work well. 4. no recognition of different users without you telling it who you are 5. limited ability to change things or add things other than programming skills. and 6 you have to use a scary Terry type board for mouth movement. oh, and you would have to work out a way to pause audio recognition in ez-buidler or Alexa. if all you want to do is Alexa, this works.
We are adding Google and Alexa to EZ-AI in time, along with Watson and whatever else comes out in time. I think depending on one platform for this now is like depending on Beta Tapes, HD video or any number of other things that were cool technology backed by huge companies, but ultimately failed. You need a solution that allows any of these technologies to fail, and still have a working solution.
Thanks. I managed to make it home for a weekend and wanted to try both echo and Siri. I use a third party audio servo driver to animate the jaw. This card has an onboard 3.5 mm jack. The demonstration shows how Alan could be used as a simple personal assistant by just using your voice. It certainly is not a substitute for AI , more a like voice activated a Alexandrian library.
These additional uses will place Alan in the general consumer market. We are pretty excited about it. The Echo will eventually have a male voice and probably an option to change names. In the mean time, a female Alan has been built in the computer and is awaiting 3D printing.
I have another month on this film, but shortly after should have some news on Alan.