FNR – Robot Mesh Network: Intro & Node 1

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, September 19th, 2010

I’m trying to create a network for my robots to communicate through and interact with the outside world to have some new behaviours emerge. Each robot will be able to read and transmit messages. The robots will be given basic instructions for things to listen to and eventually some behavioural AI to link previous commands together. The idea is to have robots talking to each other, informing one another of different sensor readings, thereby creating a shared knowledge of the environment that the robots are in.

In a military robots example, a UAV could be observing the environment below and an autonomous rover analyzing some LIDAR sensor data of its ahead of it. With some mapping algorithms applied and communication between the two robots, a rescue mission could be planned and executed very quickly. It’s all about networking the robots and making them talk together in “words” they understand.

Last Friday I worked on getting Twitter integrated with Processing. This weekend I added on to that existing work by trimming down the tweet string, and having it transmitted to an Arduino which broadcasted the message through the XBee to the other devices.

There are currently three devices on the network right now:
Node 0: Transmitter from the computer
Node 1: RoboGlyphs
and a Watchdog, which doesn’t transfer data, only reads what is being sent out.

Here is a video of a broad and basic explanation of everything so far:

The transmitter node serves as the main point of communication of the internet to the devices, and vice versa. It’s using an Arduino with an XBee attached to it. Right now its main purpose is to send out the tweet that it receives from the Processing sketch.

The transmitter node looks like this:

Which is attached to the computer running a Processing sketch:

The Processing sketch is connected to Twitter, and searches for tweets that are to @RobotGrrlsBots. The connection is through OAuth, since IP rate limiting for feeds resets less often, as far as I have observed. It sends the most recent tweet to the transmitter node.

The RoboGlyph node receives the tweet, and does what the command says. The command has to be formatted in the way of this:

If it is received OK, which is usually is, then it will display it! The process that the RoboGlyphs follow is that it fades in the colours, then it waits for a command. Once it receives a command, the colours will fade out.

This is what the RoboGlyphs node looks like:

And this is it working!

Pretty cool. The RoboGlyphs could use a tune up though by using one of the TLC594 16 bit PWM out chips. Right now the green LEDs don’t use PWM, so it makes the animation look choppy.

The Watchdog watches all of the data that is being transmitted and shows it on the screen. This is what it looks like:

It’s useful to try to debug some things. While making everything I was having trouble with the New Soft Serial library and Arduino 0019.

Next time I will be working on getting data transported back from the RoboGlyphs and sending a tweet. From there, it will be about adapting that code to all of the other robots too. This is just the start!

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

Posted in: Programming, Projects, Robot.

Finishing the RoboGlyphs Project

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Just the fun stuff was left for this project! Here is a photo blog montage of the journey to the finish

The first thing to do was to put the black foam backing onto the RoboGlyph. I wasn’t really sure how the glue would look, so I placed a minimal amount on the corners. Next time I do this, I’m going to put glue all over the back since it created a neat effect with the sparkles on the foam. It sort of makes them more sparkly…

Cut the excess foam away with the Xacto knife. Cutting it on a slight inwards angle towards the glyph is much better than a 90 degree cut, I found.

To mount the RoboGlyphs to their board, I used toothpicks on the back. This is what it looks like from the front:

Zoomed in:

The toothpicks fit nicely in the holes of the perf board. I found that if you put glue in the perfboard hole, then put the toothpick in, it will stick better.

They’re all tilted forward because they don’t have a proper footing yet! =)

Again, from the back:

At first I was thinking about using some rubber feet to keep the RoboGlyphs standing, but I didn’t have any on hand. The next best thing: Lego! Plus, there is something else that I can add on to the Lego to make it even more interesting…

The “more interesting” part would be tinfoil! Tinfoil is a conductor, and therefore can have a charge running through it.

It’s quite a difficult task to manage to put the tinfoil onto the Lego bricks. This try was using hot glue. When another brick is placed on this one, the tinfoil splits.

I tried using a simple glue stick, and it actually works much better! The tinfoil does not split when another brick is placed on top of it.

Putting tinfoil inside the brick is much easier.

While the glue is setting for the tinfoil, it’s time to wire up the RoboGlyphs. Thanks to the super simple colour coded wires, the process took a matter of seconds. The Sanguino only has 6 PWM pins, and there are no PWM drivers in my pocket, so the green LEDs will not be controlled by PWM.

Green is probably the best default colour!

Red:

Blue:

The edge lighting is really cool, even though I didn’t really do it very precisely. You can’t really tell from this photograph, though.

The Lego 2x4s were glued on to the bottom of the boards. Then they’re placed onto the tinfoil-coated Lego brick. 5V is applied through an alligator clip!

The other end goes into an Analog In, where the Sanguino checks to see if there’s anything there. If nothing is there… The lights don’t turn on!

There’s a few finishing touches that I have to make. I’d like to connect it to Twitter via Processing, and have it as a permanent setup. I also have to fix the Lego connections, as right now it can only tell if the middle RoboGlyph is disconnected! =)

Posted in: Art, Projects.

Advancing on RoboGlyphs

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Around June 8th and 10th, more stuff was done on the RoboGlyphs project.

The boards were painted black…

Which actually looked quite dazzling when dry:

The wires were soldered in, too. Also, the wires were colour coded too!

Thus, the final product!

Posted in: Art, Projects.

RoboGlyphs Project

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Monday, June 7th, 2010

I was looking through some of the things I had lying around the other day, and I found my old RoboGlyphs!

Check out my old posts about them… beep boop

It feels like I never quite did a good job with them. They’re really pretty pieces of plastic, they deserve better! Another thing that I have been noticing lately is that there are many primarily electronic add-ons for Arduinos. What about just plain old accessories with a main function of looking artsy? I’m thinking that the RoboGlyphs (when I redo them) will be able to be one of the first “more art than electronic add-on” for an Arduino.

The plan is to have an RGB LED illuminate the RoboGlyph from below. There will be a female header on the perf board so it can be interfaced with an Arduino, or just a circuit of some sort. There will be black sparkly “felt” (it’s not really felt, but I have no idea what it is called) covering the front of the LED part, so it looks as magical as possible. The RoboGlyph will be backed by this felt also. I’m thinking of using toothpicks or something rudimentary simple to hold the glyph in place. I’ll probably use rubber feet on the bottom of the perf board to keep it sturdy.

This is the black sparkly “felt” that I’m talking about:

The first thing that I’m going to do to start this project off are the perf boards. They are all measured for the RoboGlyph.

I wanted to make sure that they were smooth, so I spent time sanding them down…

The end result is very smooth! It will be very unlikely to get a perf board cut from these

This is where I intend for the RGB LED to sit:

That’s it for now! Later on I’m going to paint the top of the perf board black (to match the black sparkly “felt”) and afterwards solder in the LED and header. =)

Posted in: Art, Projects.

RoboGlyphs are here!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

I have hinted at RoboGlyphs several times during my blog posts… and now they are here!

They look stunning in real. Since I know not everyone would want an illuminator, I broke it down into three products:

RoboGlyph + Illuminator = $16.00
RoboGlyph = $12.50
Illuminator = $4.50

The illuminator comes in 3 different colours – orange, green, and blue!

I plan to make RoboGlyphs similar to the Nerd Merit Badges, where you have to collect them all to be SUPER COOL!

The first set of RoboGlyphs are the Three Laws of Robotics from Isaac Asimov.

I can’t wait to see if some will use an Arduino + PWM an RGB LED to create interesting effects. I know I’ll probably have to try that tomorrow!

You might be wondering where this money will go? Here’s the list:

1. MANOI’s gears (I need a new gear for one melted )
2. RoboGames 2009 Registration
3. Plane tickets to SF
4. Hotel in SF
5. Possible RobotGrrl.com T-shirt
6. Robot trading cards
6. Books, parts, sensors, etc.

The main focus here is RoboGames. Last year, I went to Stanford thanks to the entire robotics community. Now, I need to go to RoboGames because Grant Imahara will be there! Hahahaha, just kidding (or am I?). I actually want to go to see what its like, check out all the robots. I’m not entirely sure what to expect! I know that MANOI will be in good company there.

So, if you have any spare pennies lying around, buy a RoboGlyph or two! Buy a complete set!

Posted in: Art, Other, Projects.

RoboGlyphs

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, April 19th, 2009

Lately, I have been trying to come up with ideas that would allow me to do a similar ‘gig’ as last year- when I was accepted to the Stanford program to learn AI.

Some may remember, some may not — some might not even know. Last year I was accepted into the Stanford University Education Program for Gifted Youth under the Artificial Intelligence program. Of course, it wasn’t very affordable. I created these Styrofoam vibrobots called Styrobots. Thanks to numerous efforts of the robotics community as a whole, we raised enough money for me to attend.

This year, I’m going to WWDC and RoboGames. I didn’t apply to any academic programs – aka the CMU Summer Robotics Institute & NASA’s Robotics Academy because they require US Citizenship, or something of the like.

WWDC and RoboGames are both in SF, CA, and around the same time period!

The idea I came up with are RoboGlyphs! They are small laser-etched ‘glyphs’ that can connect with other glyphs. The first three that I will be releasing are the 3 Laws of Robotics.

Here are some photos:

They look absolutely stunning in person!

However, this is not all that I plan to do with the RoboGlyphs. I plan to somehow attach a LED so that it can illuminate the words, so they can be seen in the dark.

I’m hoping to release these on Etsy around the first week of May. Keep an eye out!

Posted in: Art, Other, Projects.