Here is a video of an explanation of what the user can see and hear:

BubbleBoy’s “Melodies” from RobotGrrl on Vimeo.

You can download the code here!

Oh, and I streamed while making this.

Soooo, I challenge all of you who are reading this to add a speaker/sound to one of your projects. It doesn’t have to be fancy! Leave a comment if you do accomplish this challenge, I would like to see it

Pat (a fellow member of COSI), had an awesome idea of a hack. We could hook up an Arduino to a Furby to make it into a fortune teller! The idea is based off of one of those creepy fortune-telling devices or something.

So he brought his Furby after Fall break, and we opened it up.

Getting the skin off was easier than we thought it would be! Presto:

We did not expect to see as many gears as we did, check it out:

What on earth could all of those gears be for?!!?!

Here’s the wires on Furby’s right side:

Furby’s left side:

After doing some digging through the internet and just poking the Furby, we figured out that…:

• The gears control the movements of the Furby- there’s no microcontroller to do this! (Back side)
• The wires on the right side are for the IR emitter and detector and LDR in the Furby’s forehead (Right side)
• There’s a switch in the tongue! (Right side)
• The motor wires are the ones with the resistors (Left side)
• We still have no idea what those other wires do (Left side)
• The motor doesn’t work with just +5V… Hmmm!!!

Figuring out the motor was a huge roadblock. If we couldn’t figure this out… then it just wouldn’t work! A few months later of Furby sitting on my desk idly staring at me it hit me! I could use MANOI’s battery to power the Furby!

The result:

(Video on Flickr)

We’re still not too sure what to think about the result. It’s hilarious though!! There is motor burning smell when we run it, but nothing is hot. Weird eh!

All we have to do now is hook up the sensors, maybe add a speaker… and this could definitely provide some super lolz!

A SOAPBOX!

How awesome is that? At Kinney’s they come in several different colours:

• Lime green
• Dark green
• Purple
• White
• Blue
• Pink

The lime green is by far the best one.

This is what it looks like on MANOI!

Inside, is an Arduino MEGA!

The only tricky part for the MEGA was that I had to make a hole for the USB cable:

The plastic isn’t the easiest to cut, but it is easy if you have patience. I don’t have patience much, so I sliced my finger with an XActo a bit. It’s not too bad though, and it is an excuse to wear Spongebob bandaids. If you know you can’t do it, I would strongly suggest you get someone that knows how to do it. Otherwise you will hurt yourself

This is sooo cool though!

Wave Shield a la Soapbox:

Ethernet Shield a la Soapbox:

Arduino Diecimila a la Soapbox:

Sanguino a la Soapbox (needs to be cut to fit):

Boarduino a la Soapbox (could probably fit 4 of these in there):

Phewephewphhpweh! The soapboxes only cost $1.49 each.

~~~~

This entire week I was constantly debugging MANOI in order to get it to play hockey again. Midweek my friend lent me her Chinese super glue. I glued myself to the super glue… so I bought some Krazy glue (witht he brush) and some Elmers glue.

I also found some snaps at Walmart which help incredibly to snap on the hockey stick to the hand.

My process was just constantly layering on more and more glue. Once the Elmers dried, I would add more Krazy glue. Once the Krazy dried, more Elmers… etc etc. The goal was to get it working for Saturday morning (the Tech Tent).

Everything did work by then, but it was quite a journey!

Now I am trying to find a way to have MANOI express its feelings (without movements). I was trying to do something along the lines of antennas. Take a look:

I’m not entirely sure though… I mean, doesn’t it look kind of weird?!?!?! It’s more scary than social!

From this angle it doesn’t look too bad:

Does anyone have any ideas/thoughts/comments?

I have also been working on getting my Arduino MEGA multi-cored by connecting with other Arduinos. Basically, the MEGA will only be controlling the servos and the other Arduinos. The other Arduinos would be controlling the LEDs, music, ethernet, you name it.

The thought came to me today that I also can make it so that the MEGA is wireless and communicates to the SSC-32 wirelessly (through an XBee). I am so excited I don’t know what to do first!!!

In the middle of the week I am going to make a blog post about the Nunchuck code People will probably find it handy.

Since the Sanguino requires too many female headers (which cost money, and I don’t have any), I decided to switch up to the Arduino MEGA. It fits in the box that is already there, so it is all good.

Originally I thought that the Wave Shield would work on the MEGA, but it turned out that it didn’t. What I ended up doing instead, though was using one of the MEGA’s extra Serial lines to send a command to another Arduino to start playing music (on the Wave Shield).

I used my iHome speaker thing that I bought at Walmart for $20. Pretty good value, and it’s purple.

It was pretty fun. However, I only used the motions that I created a while ago when MANOI’s knees were broken. A blog post is coming shortly about the previous FNR where I fixed the gears

I even attached a wild duck to MANOI’s head for the occasion:

Here is a video, it is not too good:

See, the problem in the video (when I had to shake it) was that the TX line to the SSC was loose. It does this from time to time. Especially after switching boards!

Friday was a pretty funny day. In the morning, it looked super beautiful because of how blue the sky was! The tree branches really stood out on the sky, and it looked really interesting.

Turned out though, as the day progressed… I remember walking to ARC and it was raining out. No problem there! I always enjoy looking at people who think that they are going to melt because of rain… Then after I leave the ARC there’s like 10cm of snow on the ground! Hahaha

A few days previous to this FNR, one of those bendy lamps broke. It was placed by the trash and looked very sad and lonely! I rescued it, deciding to make a robot for ARC.

Here is a video of the final product!

At first it was pretty tricky to decide where the servos would be placed. I chose a few random points and decided to go with that. After trying a proof-of-concept servo mockup, it turns out that those DOFs would not work because the bendy part was not bendy enough.

Instead, I mounted the servos at the top of the lamp. There’s only two DOF, however when you have only 2 DOF, you always have a very large window of opportunities. The best part of 2 DOF is when it looks comparable to a human nod (yes) or shake (no) of the head.

This part is the no (left/right) DOF

It is mounted securely with oodles of hot glue. However, in the video it shows that servo before the servo horns were attached together with hot glue. (Hence why it fell off- in the video)

This is the servo horn for the top part – backwards/forwards to create a ‘yes’ effect. I had to sand it down a bit to make the horn parallel to the lamp surface. It often popped off when it started to move, so that’s why there are popsicle sticks. They attach to the inside of the lamp.

So all in all, here are the servos mounted on the lamp! Cool eh?

The lamp is held down with a relatively massy mass. I think it has sand in it. It works very well!

There were times in this FNR where I was just waiting for glue to dry, so I also did some other stuff! I looked up this lil’ guy and how to make him work (notice how I just gave an electronic component a gender, but I can’t bare to give a gender to a robot… weird o_o) Turns out, I need a breakout board with lots of diodes and stuff. Blerg! Hahahaha. He is once more going back into the “stuff to do when…” box.

There was also this thingy- it is 2×4 orangey-red lights. I think it can be used for the lamp robot… like have the robot listen to 8 questions, and each of the lights lights up when a question is asked. Hahaha! I am concerned though that these are lamps because they are really really really hot when I put 5V (from the Arduino) into them.

I also wired up these LEDs… they all work, and are very prettyyyy!

The other thing that I did was I posted up the rules for RICC, the webpage of RICC, the webpage of RoboGames, and the Events page of RoboGames. I don’t think that the ARC will participate in RoboGames. RICC would be a very possible “maybe”. See, I am not the leader of the ARC – I don’t have control.

This last picture is just a nice picture I took of wires…

It is also on youtube.

The “squeaking” that you hear was one of the servos pulsating, most likely due to a short. I unplugged it later, and it stopped. ^_^

The program evaluates the light the same way MANOI’s hockey stick did. Once it goes over a particular threshold, it will begin to spin its hat and start saying “HELLO!HELLO!HELLO!”.

At first, I wanted to make BB react to sound, so I dismantled a “haut-parleur” that I got a while ago, thinking that it was a piezo speaker. It’s actually not a piezo, because when I was looking at the analog readings on the Arduino, nothing happened if I fiddled with it. Weird!

When it says on the LCD that I’m at “cheel”, it is hardcoded in. I tried to use the script that downloads a feed, but it doesn’t work for me, for some reason. I commented below that post with my setup and questions. =)

Aah I can’t wait until my Femsapien arrives from the EPFL! It is super boring without a humanoid to work on.

I’m not exactly sure what the moral of this FNR is supposed to be… annoy me and face ‘teh ultimate’ BubbleBoy?! Hahahaha

I’ll add the video later in another post, Vimeo has a wait time of 130 minutes – and YouTube … well who knows about YouTube. o.O

I’m going to be working on an AI Library for Processing with a few people here at the COSI (hopefully). Expect many more posts about that! Woohuu! =)

That’s all for now. *turns lamp off*

Just as a fair warning, if this entry has more bizarre grammar mess-ups than usual, it’s because I ate too many jelly beans, and all I can think of is jelly beans! Robot jelly beans, jelly bean slushie, a meadow of jelly beans, jelly bean snow… *goes on and on* I think in pictures… and all I can think of right now is a DANCING JELLY BEAN ROBOT! Hahaha, joking. (Or am I?) ^_^

I hardly realized it was Friday today, so it doesn’t really feel like a FNR.

Last Friday, although I didn’t blog it, I was working on the LEDs that you’ll see on the stick, and the program! This Friday I tested and twirked the program so I can blog it.

Here is MANOI!

Do you notice something different about the stick?

The stick now has two perf boards on it! These perf boards have three yellow LEDs surrounding a LDR which has black construction paper around it.

The reason why I chose these yellow LEDs was nothing scientific. These were the only ones I had where I could have some consistency across the two boards. The LEDs on the left are inside of a yellow casing. The ones on the right are in a clear casing. There is a little bit of a difference in the readings of the LDRs, but they both work the same.

I would have really liked to do a different version of this but with an IR sensor and a FSR, but, as I mentioned above, these were the only things I had, and they will for sure get the job done!

What happens is the LDRs “spit out” a reading of the amount of light around it. I use the cardboard to ensure it is directed at what we want to be observing. When there is no object between the two LDRs, the reading is very high. Yet, when there is an object between the two, the reading drops a fair amount. This is because the LDR cannot sense the light from the opposite LEDs. I also tested this with a fairly white object (my DAD’s lead solder spool (eeew lead)) and it does work, meaning the reflected light from the LEDs back into the LDR (on the same board) does not obscure it. You can see for yourself in the video below.

I tinkered with the LDRs’ amount that it to create a threshold that will trigger MANOI’s shot. From what I learned at Stanford, this is simply called a neuron. It has input values, and if they meet a certain threshold,it will do something. This is a very primitive form of AI, but big things come in simple steps. =)

Here is a video of MANOI action! Pretend that the roll of tape is a hockey puck… it almost looks the same!

It is also on youtube, here.

At the beginning, you see the LEDs flash. This means that the Arduino is soon going to evaluate the LDR levels. It takes five samples from each LDR, one every 500 ms. It then makes an average, which is the baseline used for comparing the LDR value against the threshold.

Yes, I agree, that this can completely become messed up. I will probably implement a markov approach to create (and update) the baseline. However, I’ll probably only do that after I make a modified Bayes algorithm for the AI.

You might have noticed something different about MANOI’s other hand. I’m giving it a gripping claw so that it can grip stuff. It won’t be meant to hold on to anything precious, but it could emphasize an effect here or there.

While I was adding on the boards, there was just not enough room for all of the stuff that I needed… like +5V and -Gnd. I made a thing with headers and inverted headers so I can easily plug it in!

It saves much needed space on the wave shield:

Just to add, today I was using an Arduino with an ATmega328.

There are more pictures that you can look at in this photoset on Flickr!

This project is almost finished! I just will add in an algorithm improving the AI, make more videos… and that’s it! I will continue the project later on, though with a few more things. I’ll add servos that can rotate the leg so I can make the robot actually skate, and many more things that I am still thinking of.

Can you believe that the Trossen Robotics robot contest deadline is really soon? Yikes!!
I just have to take a few more videos and work out what I will say in my post… what do you think the judges will be looking for? Hopefully it won’t end up like BubbleBoy in crabfu’s competition… x_x

Though, when crabfu was on Daily Planet (I actually saw it on TV (like two months before all of the robot websites started to go crazy over it), not on youtube) he described his robots as having character because you can interact with them through a control pad.

I think that is completely opposite, because then it is just the human expressing their character through a machine. When you don’t have to use a remote, yet the robot still interacts with its environment, that’s when a robot truly has character. :d

Now we know why BubbleBoy obviously lost… He can have his definition, and I’ll have mine. His works are very interesting though! I never knew you had to start a fire to make a steam thingy move. I figured you would just boil water or something… hahahaha (I never thought as far as you would need fire to make water boil, though… EPIC NOT-WIN!) XD

I hope you really enjoyed this blog post. It makes a lot more sense now that one can see what the finished robot will look like!

I’m so exhausted from trying to debug this router thing. I can’t stand networking!!! I mean, you’re pretty much trying to overcome little pieces of chaos all the time. I think it was Cantor who came up with the thought that if you take two rectangles and cut them in three, throw away the middle piece (I think), then repeat the pattern on the new rectangles- you’ll get something infinitely large, yet infinitely sparse. So… you’re basically trying to configure something that will work 80% of the time, while trying to leap over hurdles that you can’t control or see- that will appear from nowhere, PLUS the other random throw offs. This could make someone go crazy!!!!!

I applied to be a BETA tester of the Roboduino on Thursday (I think), but the applications were already closed (it didn’t say that on the website). It’s kind of funny, since I was the first person to mention BETA testing. Hahahaha! I’m really confused about it though :S From what I understand, the applications were open Wednesday morning, then closed Wednesday night. But… if you lived in Australia, wouldn’t that mean you never had a chance? You would only realize the apps were open when you woke up, which would be Wednesday night- so they would be closed, already. Maybe there will be GAMMA (or ALPHA) testers though, so I won’t lose hope!

I guess the highlight of tonight’s FNR was when I stayed up till 11 to watch Daily Planet.

I love the in-depth meteorite coverage they have been giving. It’s so cool how it landed in a place called Lone Rock!! Hahahaha I only hope that it isn’t damaged too much by landing in the pond though >.< I didn’t bother to watch the rest of the show since it seemed only about biology.

OH YEAH! I also made a prototype of a decoration that I’m going to put on the tree. It’s 2 inches wide, 4 inches long… and it has a robot on it. In the middle of the robot, there’s an LED. You can press near the bottom of the decoration to turn it on/off.

I’m thinking of making three and putting them on Etsy for $2.50 (+ $5 shipping) to see if they would sell. All of the profit would be going towards a book that I want that explains Jacobians and Inverse Kinematics and transforms/rotations from frame to frame.