I made a new video about RoboBrrd and MANOI with the commands. I like the angle used for the robots in this video, it portrays the social cue that they are talking to eachother, which they are, but in their own robotic-mesh way. :3

View it on YouTube.

RoboBrrd now has passive behaviours, which turned out to be really cute and fun. I love how passive behaviours always add so much more depth to the robot. Only problem is the sequential and timing aspect of them, sometimes they override the sensors. Also, the gurgling of the speaker can probably be fixed with a capacitor and resistor. I moved the speaker to the main board from the communication board because it wouldn’t work all of the time. It was really fishy. :/

Last week I worked really hard on RoboBrrd to try and finish something (anything!- just trying to make it work!) for the MAKE: Bots With Character contest. One night I stayed up really late trying to debug the TLC5940 PWM shift out circuit. The next day I ended up scrapping it and just using the Arduino MEGA’s PWM outputs (there are a lot of them!).

Luckily, the contest was pushed back, so I have more time to write the written tutorial. The written tutorial is getting pretty long, it is quite surprising!

The second bio-inspiration video and the design video will be next on the line. Also going to make a character overview of RoboBrrd for the contest.

I am crazy for this contest because I live, eat, breathe social robotics, and having character in your robot is an important part of that and so many people forget about it! I want to show the whole world what it would be like if robots were their own sentient species! I want to be able to get people to make their own interactive robots so that they can experiment too! It is all so super exciting with so many exclamation points!!!!!!!!

To be honest, MANOI hasn’t been powered up since May. There were a few tune ups that were needed. This included a few hours of debugging in order to determine that the TX and RX wires got swapped that were going to the SSC-32. The SSC-32 was also having some power problems, so I added in a new switch:

The XBee is going to fit in behind the SSC-32, above the gyro and accelerometer sensor. You can see a part of it here:

Once this was all set, I started to communicate to MANOI through IRC.

Here’s a video of an explanation and demonstration:

The IRC bot runs from a Python script. The initial code that I used was from Cmd-c && Cmd-v (cool blog name!). They use the pyserial and irclib libraries. There are specific commands that will trigger certain events. The commands are actually the function definitions, it is all done through the magic of this line of code:

The first command that I started out with was to read the force sensitive resistor on MANOI’s hand (kudos to Krafter for donating the FSR)! This is what the function looks like in Python:

This is how it gets parsed into MANOI’s Arduino brain:

BTW, this is how we are reading in the Serial data. It’s a pretty fail-safe way of doing it, especially as it is wrapped in the infinite loop. It makes sure that you don’t miss any data!

It’s pretty cool to see it working! For triggering dance moves, it is a basic command called danceCmd. The user then feeds in some argument that lets the Arduino know which one you want. For these examples, I used the argument BAJNGL. It stands for “Both Arm Jingle”, but saying it phonetically is pretty funny too *bajingle*!

Python:

Arduino:

But here is where the problem starts! Even though the commands that are sent to move the servos on the SSC-32 are attached to Serial2, they still go into the Serial output buffer. This means that when the Python script wants to read four bytes to see if the Arduino responded to the command, it gets the first four bytes of the motion command that are being sent to the SSC-32. It’s confusing because… why would Serial2 be going into just Serial? It’s really weird.

When I try to clear the buffer through Python, it messes up the way the function is handled. In Arduino, you can’t flush the output buffer, only the input buffer. However, I think that you used to be able to flush the output buffer, as I found an excerpt of a book that said that flush had two boolean values fed into it, for input and output. I think it will turn out to be a simple timing process thing for flushing the buffers from Python.

Once I figure that out, I can add on the XBee to MANOI and test it through wireless communication! I also have a ChronoDot that I can add on to MANOI as well, so that it knows what time it is. I kind of destroyed the circuitry for the RoboGlyphs when I tried to use a TLC594 with RGB LEDs. The TLC594 controls the PWM of the LEDs by connecting them to ground. It’s basically reverse of what you normally do. Common cathode RGB LEDs can’t work with this, only common anode. Once I save up enough moneys to buy an Arduino UNO Mega, then MANOI will receive that, and the RoboGlyphs will receive MANOI’s older Arduino MEGA. The RoboGlyph’s Sanguino can be used for BubbleBoy. That leaves two normal Arduino boards and one Boarduino left to be used for TECHNOROBOT and for the Transmitter and Receiver. The Yoda Rampage Robot already has an on-board Arduino on it.

Here’s the link to the Arduino code:

Here’s the link to the Python code:

Thanks to comm.cslabs’s IRC channel for being to withstand the numerous tests on MANOI and IRC bot. Glad I haven’t crashed it yet!

Here’s a photo of some pretty leaves at sunset being hidden by some technology (a telephone and power pole).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. GO OPEN SOURCE!

MANOI’s gyro and accelerometer were in need of being more securely mounted, and the area in MANOI’s back is a great place to mount them. You can hardly see them, but the gyro is mounted on the right wall, and the accelerometer is mounted on the back wall. There’s a piece of foam in there to protect them, and keep them more secure.

The Serial Servo Controller (SSC-32) is what is mounted on top of these, and it was previously only attached to MANOI by velcro. Now there’s some wire tied through its waist and through the SSC-32 to hold it in place!

That was about it for that Friday. The readings from the accelerometer and gyro are definitely less jumpy, and MANOI’s center of gravity is moving around less now.

First step was to remove the wires currently attached to the LED (these were red white green black wires), cut the new wires (red orange yellow brown) to a shorter length. Solder on the new wires, and use green shrink wrap. The green is important, since this colour matches MANOI’s colour scheme

When all four are done:

The terminals were where a lot of breaks occurred, so these had to be improved. The previous way this was handled was that I soldered the wires to pins on a 3 pin male header, then placed hot glue around the solder joints. This time, I used shrink wrap instead of the glue.

It makes sure that it is nice and sturdy. People can actually touch it now, and it won’t break!

The ground bus was also very messy the first time around. This was now fixed, and cannot be seen since it will be within MANOI’s head unit.

After positioning and hot gluing, it looks great!

The new antennas really go with the colour theme

Here you can see that the wires are much tidier.

And voila! MANOI looks much happier now.

As for the rest of tidying up… I made a quick battery caddy out of a watch tin to keep my batteries organized into charged or needs to be charged!

On MANOI’s other hand with the hockey stick is this adapter that sort of extends the hand from the servo a bit. I figured I might as well add it to the other hand as well. I also fixed the bows with the jingle bells and reattached them to MANOI’s wrists- that’s what the velcro is for in the below picture

Fixed MANOI’s hockey stick plug in adapter wires:

The next improvement was to the power switch that powers the servos. The switch keeps on breaking, so I wanted to redo it. Since I was redoing it, I figured I might as well use one of the switches that lights up! Since there’s three prongs, and one of them is a Ground, I wanted to be overly careful and make sure I test it first…

The switch works, lights up, and doesn’t blow up! It’s rated for 12V, and the battery is 11.1V. Hopefully there is enough wiggle room there. I’m pretty pleased with the way it looks and works in comparison to the broken switch.

That’s about all that has been accomplished this far. There’s still a lot more to do! On my workdesk now I have two ultrasonic sensors, a gyro and accelerometer, and many photoresistors (LDR). I want to somehow hook up the LDRs to MANOI and make a program where I can shine a light at them, and MANOI would move accordingly. Taking it a step further, I’d attach the light to a Wii Nunchuck where MANOI could number crunch and analyze the accelerations from the nunchuck to do something — maybe make a prediction about where the light will be going. It would sort of be like a game of Simon, only the “Simon” would be MANOI, and would be actively trying to outsmart you.

Team 229 is heading to a FIRST competition this week- and since I don’t have three tests on one day I can actually go to this one! WOOHOO!

The location of this competition is one of the most awesome ones… APPARENTLY iRobot scouts people there. Meaning, they’re hunting for smart brains to hire during the summer. :XD: Even though I don’t roll with military style robots (they aren’t supposed to be sociable), that’s pretty cool, to be honest.

I figured that it would be awesome to carry MANOI around and just having it wave its arms, with a Team 229 flag (see picture above). I think some High Schoolers may enjoy that.

Transporting MANOI for the past few years has been a hassle… so we finally found a good box with styrofoam stuff in it! The styrofoam is actually really nicely engineered, because it comes cut into rectangles, which means that you can easily customize it. This is how MANOI fits in its new box:

There is room for MANOI’s basic needs in there- the batteries and charger, ping pong balls, USB cables… etc.

The outside needs more stickers, but I have the classic FRAGILE one, and a “Made with LabVIEW” sticker — even though it’s not even relatively made with LV. Hahahaha! I’m thinking of printing out a picture of an Arduino and taping it on there.

The other day, a member of CUARC with a dremel cut a hole in this metal box for me… Can you guess what is on the inside?

IT’S A MINTYBOOST! YAY!

This will provide MANOI’s microcontroller with the power that it needs while cheering on Team 229

I haven’t programmed the motions yet for MANOI, but I can do that in the hotel tonight. I’m thinking that the legs will be stationary, and just have the arms move around. Also thinking of using the Wii nunchuck to control which sensors are being read or something. I will indeed post the code when I make it! =)

Near the beginning of the Spring 2010 semester, a small activities fair was hosted for various clubs at Clarkson University. Autonomous Robotics Club originally didn’t have a table, but the orchestra let us have a little piece of theirs… =) Coincidentally, it was right near the Yankadi (west African drumming) club!

MANOI was running the Holiday Xtravaganza program, which made it look like it was ringing its bells in tune to the music!!! It was a really interesting sight to see, music from a robot and music from a group interacting together!

Here is a short video of some clips (mainly focussing on MANOI) of the event:

Music is a form of nonverbal communication, says Captain Obvious. So, it would be really worthwhile in the future to research how robots and humans can interact together through music. Perhaps in some elder care homes, drumming in a group with their personal robot (pets) can be a possibility! Maybe it wouldn’t be as intense drumming as this– it could be playing on a balafon or something.

The current elder generation has been closely tied with music… the radio was really popular back then, TVs weren’t all that common yet. Introducing personal robots into this type of a scenario would make sense, it wouldn’t be too intimidating for the elders since they have been accustomed to music for a very long time.

Here are two more videos of MANOI and Yankadi:

Yankadi is really great music activity since it’s so creative and doesn’t require any rhythm at all (if you’re playing in a big group). Plus, the sound is amazing!

Art and technology!! ^_^

I was always under the impression that “great” humanoid robots can walk, run, and kick very well, basically being the best robots in RoboCup. MANOI will never be a RoboCup robot, since the knees are too weak and the stronger knees cost $300 a piece. I realized this a few months ago, admitting it is sort of harder

But, MANOI can be an interactive robot and do funny things… so in 2010, I’m going to focus more on the appearance and movements of MANOI. I want it so that the person interacting with MANOI can become attached to it, feeling that it exhibits an actual persona, instead of a programmed robot. I really feel that this was evident in MANOI’s Holiday Xtravaganza, but it still needs some improvements.

The first few steps would be to decorate MANOI’s head with two ears and two eyebrows. I’m considering antennae instead of eyebrows, because I don’t really want MANOI to come off as an uncanny human, but rather a friendly alien. I already have the two servos needed for the ears, so I’ll probably do those first.

Getting various sensor data will also be key in making MANOI more sociable. Currently there are three sensors on MANOI- the IR sensor, the gyro, and a LDR which is used for shaking hands. I’m thinking that those sensors alone are going to useful enough, for the time being.

It might be cool to have MANOI communicate back to a Mac so that the computer could produce audible results (like my Robbie the Robot science fair project).

There’s lots of possibilities out there, so this is pretty much a blog post of my scrambled thoughts. 2010 will be interesting, for sure!