R2-d2 Hasbro Toy Hack

@maverick96.

Yes, the IoTiny would work great with an R/C K-9 hack. The only benefits of using an EZ-B over an IoTiny is more digital and analog ports, so it would really depend on how many ports you would want to use.

For example, 2 servos for the ears, 2 servos for the neck (up/down, left/right), and an L298 motor controller for drive control which would use 4 digital ports, would use up all 8 of the IoTinys digital ports, unless you used 2 continuous rotation servos instead of a motor controller which would then leave you 2 spare digital ports.

In a nutshell, it really depends on how far you want to go with your modification.

hey steve G

is this comtrol or control ?

Quote:

Yes, the IoTiny would work great with an R/C K-9 hack. The only benefits of using an EZ-B over an IoTiny is more digital and analog ports, so it would really depend on how many ports you would want to use.

For example, 2 servos for the ears, 2 servos for the neck (up/down, left/right), and an L298 motor controller for drive control which would use 4 digital ports, would use up all 8 of the IoTinys digital ports, unless you used 2 continuous rotation servos instead of a motor controller which would then leave you 2 spare digital ports.

In a nutshell, it really depends on how far you want to go with your modification. Smile

Thank you. With this K-9 there is no head/neck movement. Much like the Hasbro R2, it is controlled by two wheels in front with a free spinning wheel in back. It does have the laser gun that can be extended and retracted which I would like to control with voice command.

With the IoTiny, can the voice recognition/command be used on a internal mic in the K-9 unit or is it through the iphone/tablet?

Also, like Hasbro R2, I was looking to have K-9 have such voice command features as the dance, sentry, etc. Are these types of things available through ARC?

Thank you again for your help.

@maverick96

Quote:

With the IoTiny, can the voice recognition/command be used on a internal mic in the K-9 unit or is it through the iphone/tablet?

Voice recognition cannot be used with the mobile app on Android or iOS devices, so has to be used with a Windows device (PC, Laptop or full Windows tablet).

The microphone has to be connected to the Windows device running ARC. The only way to have an internal mic in the robot is to also have an onboard computer. But this can have its own issues...

1.) Noise from the robot, (drive motors, servos etc), can interfere with recognition causing phrases not to be heard or cause false positives (robot noises can be interpreted as phrases and the robot would do thinks you don’t want it to).

2.) You would need a special type of microphone known as a Far Field or DSR (distant speech recognition) microphones, meaning that your voice can be heard from across a room.

Your best bet would be to use a wired or Bluetooth microphone connected to your computer running ARC. The following tutorial I have linked to below maybe of help to you, specifically the final step.

Speech Recognition Tutorial

Quote:

Also, like Hasbro R2, I was looking to have K-9 have such voice command features as the dance, sentry, etc. Are these types of things available through ARC?

Yes, all of these features are available through ARC. My R2 project only uses ARC to do all the features you quoted.

@nomad

C o m t r o l (Comunication control Lol, just kidding, it was a spelling error.

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bile app on Android or iOS devices, so has th be used with a Windows device (PC, Laptop or full Windows tablet).

The microphone has to be connected to the Windows device running ARC. The only way to have an internal mic in the robot is to also have an onboard computer. But this can have its own issues...

1.) Noise from the robot, drive motors, servos etc, can interfere with recognition causing phrases not to be heard or cause false positives (robot noises can be interpreted as phrases and the robot would do thinks you don’t want it to).

2.) you would need a special type of microphone known as a Far Field mic meaning that your voice can be heard from across a room.

Your best bet would be to use a wired or Bluetooth microphone connected to your computer running ARC.

Very helpful feedback. One more question if you don’t mind. Again a noob but the unit currently runs on 4 AA batteries. Can I use this power supply to run the IoTiny or would I need a different battery/power source?

lol

@maverick96.

Again, it really depends on what kind of modifications you want to do. In a nutshell, you could’ power the EZ-B or IoTiny off the 4 AA batteries, but I wouldn’t recommend it as you will forever be changing the batteries and only get limited run time, especially if you add servos. Rechargeable LiPo batteries are a much better option.

I think the best thing for you to do, is to start your own forum thread, share your ideas, questions etc of what you want to achieve, post some photos of what you have, and the kind of work you want to do or feel capable of doing. From there, you can get some great feedback from myself and some of the great members here to help you along the way. For example, your asking about power requirements which at the moment can’t really be fully answered as we don’t know what modifications you want to do. Once we establish that, we can talk about power.

I’ve posted another tutorial link I wrote below, that talks about different power supply’s that you may find useful.

Amps, Volts, Power Converters and Power Supplies

Quote:

gain, it really depends on what kind of modifications you want to do. In a nutshell, you could’ power the EZ-B or IoTiny off the 4 AA batteries, but I wouldn’t recommend it as you will forever be changing the batteries and only get limited run time. Rechargeable LiPo batteries are a much better option.

I think the best thing for you to do, is to start your own forum thread, share your ideas, questions etc of what you want to achieve, post some photos of what you have, and the kind of work you want to do or feel capable of doing. From there, you can get some great feedback from myself and some of the great members here to help you along the way. For example, your asking about power requirements which at the moment can’t really be fully answered as we don’t know what modifications you want to do. Once we establish that, we can talk about power.

I’ve posted another tutorial link I wrote below, that talks about different power supply’s that you may find useful. Smile

Thank you sir. Just getting the intial thought juices flowing to see if this would be a project to undertake.

I will definitely start a new thread if I decide to do the modification. I think it could be a fun side project!

Thanks for your time!