Okay here's a bit of a tangent but if you follow my thinking for a bit you'll see where I'm coming from and hopefully going to.
I am currently trying to make "Lawrence" - a combination Viki/Jarvis from the movies I-Robot / Jarvis & Ironman.
I have been trying to do this for years but always came up against the brick wall of needing more time and having to learn more code... time mostly (I am a technology teacher in New Zealand.)
Well this year I completely revamped my teaching programme and brought my neglected hobby into the classroom... and the students and I got hooked.
We tried Arduino but this was amazingly simple compared to where I had come from 30 years earlier but still too complicated for most of the kids. Then I discovered the EZ-Robot.... watched a number of DJ Sures videos and then saved like mad... for the EZ-Robot kit.
Now I have done more in three weeks tan I have done in the last 30 years of tinkering.
So here is a bit about my journey and how I hope to bring it to reality starting with automating my workshop and then building my robot fleet (with the help of Lawrence of course!)
Other robots from Synthiam community
Justinratliff's Ez-Face
Steve's Ez Robot Railroad Observation Car
I have built, or rather attempted to build, three robots.
The first was so heavy it sat there and twitched and did nothing else as I could not get past the controlling of stepper motors.
The second was incinerated in a garage fire just before it's first roll off the assembly line. All that remains are a few melted planetary gear setts.
The third was from a magazine series. It cost a small fortune but I managed to make someone elses day... progress but not the best start.
The fourth is attached here... I started with an old PC motherboard, added a laptop power system, USB mic, wireless nic, speakers and camera... then some nice little student shorted out the battery and blew the motherboard.
I used an old ATX mini, cut down its case and then hacked two put it onto Skill electric drills for the motor...
It remains ... heavily dust covered in the corner... just put on the work bench for a cameo appearance.
He may be resurrected at a later date... when the new EZ-B minis arrive and I get a Raspberry Pi !
Here's another shot!
Here are a couple of the Cybots I mentioned earlier... I'm on the lookout for these to create a little fleet of beetles that run around the place at full speed like the little one that Chewy from star wars scared in the Death Star walkway back in the 80's when I was a kid.
I've already pulled the old PIC out and put an Arduino in but then gave up for the hassle of coding...
Then I came across the EX-B. I've already had one in and pulled it out again for my Lawrence project... Just waiting for the new compact boards to put one back in and leave it in.
I've got half a mind to work towards going to the next Sci-Fi conference in 2013, dressed in black and red, with a robot cat in my arms and my little blue robot minions intentionally following me in a semi cloud formation...
Lol... and lol some more!
I've just got my third one and my goal for these little creatures is to have them scurry around under foot... cockroach like but able to seek and find their own re-charger stations... and explore that robot herd instinct like at the end of i-Robot.
Around about 6 months ago I started pulling apart my old Tomy 2000 robot to put an Arduino into it... the project was intended to teach my students the desig n process... Here is a link to the project (now stalled while I save for another ARC)
Here is the digital portfolio showing the project Tomy Hack demonstrating the Design Process
Anyway along the way I wondered if anyone else in the world is trying to do the same and started looking on youtube ... that's when I saw DJ Sure's video clip.
He had done exactly what I had been trying to do - only 100 times better.
Today I did some more work on Lawrence. I paid for a good quality Voice file from Cepstral a couple of yours ago and it works just great with ARC.
I can walk into my office in a little granny flat outside and say "Hello Lawrence - please Skype ...." or "Please open a new Word document...". While I know this was already possible with Speech Recognition it did not give me the opportunity to script together several commands, replies, etc.
I also use a very old copy of BMS music station player that plays sound files at set times. I use this for anouncing times of the day and other recurring notices.
Using the same voice adds to the impression that Lawrence is 'everywhere' and sounds awesome. Especially when it says "Thank you Master Wayne" ... lol.
Only drag is I want to do the same in the workshop so keep pulling the board out of the office and taking it to the workshop.
This weekend I wired up one of those 4 channel relays to an old multi board. It took a bit of working cause when the EZ-B connection is dropped because of a bit of bad programming on my part (Eg. Calling a connect when already connected) all the data lines go high and turn on everything.
I had to put a fifth relay in the loop to enable/disable power to the grid so that when things got confused the initial state of the data lines would be off. In other words if the power fails or my EZ-B fails due to power loss everything turns off in stead of on.
I can now say stuff like "Lawrence power up the workshop " and the workshop starts up.
I can also say: Lawrence - turn on/off the workshop lights Lawrence - turn on/off the sodering iron Lawrence - turn on/off the extractor fan Lawrence - turn on/off the dramil Lawrence - turn disable/enable the workshop power grid.
When I say "Lawrence shut down the workshop" the data lines are set low and I am given 30 seconds to leave the room before the lights turn off.
Here's a shot of today's multi-board hack
Welcome to EZ-B! It is a great product that has truly brought robotics to the rest of us. I love what you are doing with it. And your project(s) are really cool.
I like that you are using ezb in connections with relays on power sources to turn things on and off, I might steal that
lol , I would probably use it for air conditioning and turning lights on and off. Come to think of it maybe you can hack a universal remote control and program your robot to change channels or, pause or start a movie , maybe record something while you are away. =) welcome to ezb! IM josh from the Jarvis project
check out the LEAF project ,it can give something close to VIKI from irobot movie ,CAN ADD A INTERFACE easy to it,since it has the code already made called X10 controller it controls everything in the house,from security,to AC outlets,lights,A/C and heating,to a very longer list then another interface is USB-UIRT module to control every electronic item,TV,STEREO, and lot more have both on my robot design but best is the LEAF AI software its a longer list,face recognition,emoptions about 26,tell jokes,look up on the internet,spell,chat,robochat AND CONTROL WITH OTHER ROBOTS, and still a longer list my new project is my omnibot project called 6 million dollar omnibot,not because of the cost but the strength of it and speed i am electronic engineer,and builder of robots for a very long long time so if you need any help in electronic designs or sensors with is my main field,besides making my own servo's it all free help
Hi Tameion,
Welcome to this community and congratz with the robots you've made! Post some video, it looks very interesting !
Greetz,
Phg