Now I have the EZ-B kit and the Hearoid it's time to start my Showcase thread.
I still haven't decided on a name for him yet, all suggestions are welcome.
I won this robot on ebay weeks ago, for the past 2 weeks he has been waiting for me to collect him...
Today was the day, a road trip to pick him up and bring him back to his new home...
In his new home (with Omnibot and Wall-e in the background totally unaware they are next in line to be opened up)
It wasn't long before this happened...
Now waiting to go in the dishwasher to get nice and clean.
The plan is to make him autonomous, running 24/7 (except for when he knows to go charge himself up) but will also be adding in the various image tracking options.
The only other slight modifications to be made to him are to convert the head to tilt & pan which will involve having to give him a small neck.
The head will include the camera. I haven't yet decided to fit it in one of his eyes or to make it his nose. The issue to overcome with this is the blue tint on the bubble head. The mouth will have a light or some lights in which flicker when he speaks.
The arms will be given some life with servos at the shoulder joints and the elbows provided I can get them to fit in there nicely.
Ultrasonic sensor will be in his chest, probably on a servo to give a wider view.
Original drive wheels and gearbox seem to be in very good shape so will plan to reuse those and just replace the existing motors for the modified servos if they can manage the task.
Speaker and microphone will be in the original positions - if it's not broke why fix it?
Not too big a project but enough to give me a test, help me learn and bring an old robot back to life.
Other robots from Synthiam community
Jim's Project Armadeus
DJ's Dalek
In the end he was just mad! J/K Very cool work! Hope he does not get too mad and try to take over the world!
VIDEO LOOKS GOOD.dont forget to share the code for the rgb leds,i just got in my Brian the Brain in.
Keep the videos coming Rich! I really like this little guy.... Good work!
Thanks for the comments
@mcsdaver I did ask him to be happy but he wasn't understanding me (the headset was on charge over the other side of the room so I'm surprised he picked up any commands). But he wont take over the world, he's "armless"
Having a few problems with him today though, I think it's the I2C commands for the BlinkM since I've changed the moods slightly (angry, happy, sad, bored, loving and excited) and the colours. I guess I have an incorrect hex code or something as when testing he would lock up ARC to the point that it needed the process to be killed in task manager. I couldn't be bothered to open the project again and find out what the cause was though, that's something for another day.
I also need to take another look at the eyelids, the motor and TIP aren't working as nicely as I want them to so probably going to throw in a servo. It's tight in there but hopefully one will fit.
On the plus side, I'm making great progress with his arms in AutoDesk 123 (while I have Inventor I find 123 design quicker and easier to use for the most part). Once I have the basic design done I'll move over to Inventor and AutoCAD where I can smooth out and tweak the meshes better... then I need to drum up more business and earn enough to blow it all on a 3D printer
@rex. you can expect to see a lot more videos. I keep meaning to get one of him sleeping but he is set to not be tired unless it's after 10pm and by that time I've forgotten about it. One day it'll come.
I hope to see more videos too
I just got in another robot BRIAN the BRAIN and hack it for the brain,not shore if i am going to use the HEAROID robot,but i do have a lot of robots to pick from,so will be checking this post for ideas i might use.
A quick update on Melvin...
His arms are coming along nicely, so far I have the upper arms all drawn up in 123D with servo mounts inside for a nice clean finish with everything hidden and hopefully the MG90s will be strong enough. The lower arms will be pretty much the same deal with servo mounts to connect on to the hands for twisting of the wrists, however I may put the servos to close the hands within the lower arms if there is space, it may need 8 servos per arm though which means EZ-B no. 2 will be needed...
Also very tempted to add in a riser to make him taller since his hands will be very close to the floor with the arms straight down, and if that happens then there will also be an on-board computer going in too and a change on the batteries.
I get the feeling that by the time he is done he will be completely different to how I first envisaged and may even end up with very few parts from the original Hearoid being used...
On the other hand it may just stay a basic hybrid Hearoid/Brian The Brain with basic hands and arms.
But I've spent far too much money this month already on car repairs, house repairs, birthdays and fun so it's all on hold for a few weeks again. At least that gives me time to get the arms perfect before sending them off to be printed though.
Looking forward to your progress...