My son is into robotics, and wanted to share his latest creation with the group - meet "Volt". This is version 2 of his work-in-progress 'companion robot'. We brought him to the NY Makerfaire and had a blast! We me some of the nicest folks from LMR We'll toss up more info later, I just wanted to get things started this morning by creating an account and whatnot.
A Conflict Between Humanity and Technology Erupts @ MakerFaire
Some footage of Volt @ Makerfaire --------------------------------------------------
The eager young scientist revealed his creation to a group of humans engaged in a primitive ritualistic celebration. The response was deafening- they encircled the pair and blasted out their powerful nonverbal protest – “NO-NO! NO-WANT! NOT-LIKE! NOT REA-DY! BE-GONE!”
The robot froze in a state of shock and thought to itself – “Am I to serve THESE creatures?”
The overwhelmed scientist clasped his ears as the cacophony ensued and he decided to make a break for it. He tried desperately to escape, his loyal creation following closely behind him, but he was thwarted by the frantic drumming of the group’s “drum-heart man”. Feeling defeated, the scientist hung his head in despair. The robot stood behind his maker, ready to defend against any attackers, but it powered down his weapons systems as a beautiful shaman/siren approached and blessed the scientist with her ” Pom-Poms of Acceptance”. At that exact moment, the conflict between Humans and Technology was resolved; we will evolve together to ensure a better future.
Sorry for the lack-of-updates, it’s been a grueling week at work, and things are a little hectic at home (new baby).
But we’ll go over the robot as he is now(Version 2), how we got to this point, and where we plan on taking him. There was a certain degree of “duct tape and crazy glue” getting him ready for MakerFaire, so we’ll be undoing some of what we did (take a few steps backward to be able to move forward)
We have been really busy lately with RL stuff and a mini MakerFaire - will be tearing most of him down during the next two months and building him back up with more hefty servos, more threadlocker, will be installing a DiIO ( http://neuronrobotics.com/ ) to control his torso (neck and arms), install new hands, and add AI (using Cubic). (http://cubic.ai/en.html)
Not sure how we will be sharing the ‘rebuild’, but we’ll take lots of pic and videos.
We’ve done a lot of work on Volt recently (including a nearly-complete teardown) We’ll try to catch you folks back up on him in the next few weeks as we re-assemble him. Just been so busy dealing with RL stuff.
Here’s a short clip of Volt from the Maker Faire last year:
That’s a pretty clean looking design. That Meccano brain looks like a quick way to get voice control and interaction. I’m working on something similar via Raspberry Pi and python. I read that you’re working on migrating from the Meccano brain to a DYIO. I look forward to seeing how that migration works out.
