Latest Update: Aug 13, 2023
Updated February 7, 2021
Everyone has some intentions when starting this project. They might want it done quickly with the high-quality parts from the club, or they might want to experience the journey of trying to make things themselves. Many are happy with a stationary prop that blinks and maybe talks, others want it to roam around and wave its arms. And of course we all have our own skill set to work with.
· Budget is a huge limiting factor for me, so mine will be mostly hand-made. I should point out that my craftsmanship skills are nearly zero. I can make things and have them be functional, but they are unlikely to win awards for beauty. Hopefully they will be good enough for the lay-person. I plan to enjoy the experience rather than worry about finishing it quickly.
· The most important thing to me is making it come alive. My focus will mainly be on the observer’s experience. Therefore it will have these features:
o It will not only speak random phrases. It will say things that have meaning, such as atmospheric conditions, status reports, responding to someone approaching.
o It will have an array of sensors to measure atmospheric pressure, humidity, temperature, room brightness, a real time clock, ultrasonic and PIR sensing of its surroundings, a digital compass, and potentially GPS.
o I hope to add voice recognition so you can do things like say “Robot Report Weather” and it will check its sensors and give you actual measurements.
· Roaming and navigation mean that it will be able to operate for extended periods on batteries.
o Energy efficiency will be a design consideration.
o Separate power systems for logic & lights, treadmotors, and animation motors. This will avoid having the treads drain all the batteries and leaving him dark and dead. It will also reduce the amount of motor noise getting into the logic circuits.
o All controls will be on-board. I don’t want to rely on having a nearby laptop computer. So there will be a number of microcontroller-operated subsystems. This also will allow me to work on my programming skills. I have a background in electronics.
· Miscellaneous Functional Ideas
o Pushing a chest button will make it flash rapidly for a few seconds. I imagine what a NASA mission control panel light of the 1960s looked like.
o Neon will be fake. I plan to use LEDs to get that orange-red color by blending colors, maybe with RGB LEDs. Acrylic rod will be used in front of that. Another builder did this using an incandescent bulb instead of LEDs but I don't know who it was.
o The torso mic and knob will be functional. When you turn up the knob, it disables on-board speech and routes the microphone through the speakers and flashes the neon.
o A few functions may be remote-controllable through a key fob.
o A more ambitious idea is to have it play chess. I may hack one of those electronic chessboards and have it do the actual thinking, but instead of using the lights along the side of the board to indicate its move, it will send the information to the robot who will speak the move. I have even more far out ideas of how to actually use his arm to move the piece, but that is way too advanced at the moment. Baby steps.
o I want as full animation as I can get. Some things like the arms and legs will be limited by my budget, since the rubber parts are not cheap.