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
Lizpoir's Omnibot 200 In Germany
Toymaker's Losing Louie (Drone 3 From The Movie Silent...
And few more bored,brave,lonely frustrated,friendly,surprise,tired,sad ,hungry
Rich On my cybernetic animal design ELF (Electronic Life Form) in the late nineties, I used a 10mm Bi-colour LED for emotions it worked like this: Normal (Happy, fully charged) = Green (slow pulse) Agitated (unexpected event like charging nest moved etc) = Green (fast pulse) Anxious (charge low) = Amber (slow pulse) Scared (charge very low) = Amber (fast pulse) Fright (cliff edge detected etc) = Red (slow pulse) Anger (human obstructing movement etc) = Red (fast pulse)
The pulsing of the LED is like the heart beat of the robot.
You can see the emotion LED in the pictures on Cyberneticzoo
cyberneticzoo.com/?p=3984
You know, last night I was watching an old Spin City, the ChiaPet was mentioned and I thought that's what I need to look at and adapt for Melvin. Replacing hunger for something else since a robot can't eat... perhaps battery level... it's just brain storming at the moment on that part really.
I have the BlinkM in the head which gives the moods colours for a visual representation, it lights the brain up nicely (although may need a couple more of them) and gives a while range of colours to use.
I'll have a look at the cyberneticzoo when I get chance, thanks.
For the variables mentioned above I'm trying to avoid any which are too close (i.e. angry and mad) and also avoid opposites (happy and sad) since 75% happy is 25% sad. If that makes sense.
Makes perfect sense, Rich. A contentment scale if you will.
Hey I just found and bought this. I thought it may be good idea for your project too. It may need something to diffuse the light though. Maybe some polyfill from a fabric and crafts store.
Rainbow LED Ring.
I can see a lot of uses for other people's projects too.
Yes, well a few scales. One for each of the main moods, so happiness, tiredness, boredom etc. and then moods based on those levels, i.e. If happiness is above 75% but boredom is above 50% then he will find something fun to do himself, or some of the "fun" activities will be enabled for the personality generator. If happiness is less than 20% and tiredness is above 70% then he will be grouchy and not want to do much. And so on.
I guess I need to dig in to some human behavioural study stuff for this one.
That's pretty cool Troy. But is it cheaper than the BlinkM? And is it as easy to use? The thing I like about the BlinkM is it is small and it is simple to use. I'll be interested in hearing about your experiences with that.
" If happiness is less than 20% and tiredness is above 70% then he will be grouchy ". If only people had these bargraphs on thier forehead. LOL
It says its I2C interface and is 61mm in diameter and $23. Just like the BlinkM it can play light scripts without a microcontroller. I want to know more about it too so I only ordered one to see how good it is. When I get it I will let you know.
Rich The ELF cybernetic animals entire existence is driven by feeding/hunger, its food is its battery power source. ELF has a charger nest where it goes back to feed (recharge).
ELFs design is based around Subsumption architecture (Rodney Brooks), which gives it a simple sense of life and death. When batteries are fully charged (fully fed) then ELF will roam, play, map locations etc, when power drains off then ELF drops these behaviors and prioritises returning to the charger nest where it can feed again which means its survival.
NICE idea TROY will need to get one from my favorite shop (dfrobot) it takes awhile to get stuff but the cost is low and they have a lot too,they might even have examples for that one.