One of the best things I have ran into is a VEX robotics kit I got in trade for doing a little handyman work. Really, I got this $300+ kit for just an hour or two of work. Since then, and to this day, I am still stealing parts from it. The VEX robot system is really a bunch of crap in that you can really just make a remote control car out of it but if you just use the parts and add your own brain, it is a godsend. All of the neck parts are from this VEX kit and have allowed for the solid joint you see. Everything else is custom made.
In terms of the programming, I started trying to program moves manually (sorta using some math to do it). It was a real pain, but more to the point, it used 7 byte variables and 3 word variables which was just not acceptable. With this "real time" system, I am down to just 4 --3 bytes (one for each servo) and one word for the main "counter". Simple is the best! --Not to mention, I figure that if you want a robot to act like a human, it seems having a human to program the moves is a good way to go.
Wow man, that’s awesome. This is a robot that will really have potential for some personality. I love the idea of using a display as his “eyes”, very clever. And that little mini-head for input is damn smooth. Is it not feasible/practical to update the servo positions in realtime as you’re recording, so that the real head mimics the mini-head? It seems like the feedback might be helpful. Or maybe it’d just be distracting since the mini head already provides a sort of direct visual feedback, but it’d look damn cool to see them mimicing each other, at least
TCG I’ve thought about that. I simply have not tried to run the head at the same time as I am “recording”. It is some super simple code to stick in there, I just haven’t done it yet! I’ll give it a go.
CtC, that is really cool, teaching the head moves from a mini head. You just developed a form of a teach pendant for Walter. Ought to make some pretty cool animations, and interactions.
About the Vex System, you’re actually using the microcontroller part on Walter already, which is programmable. The Vex options are here, but there may be some hacked cables and languages toprogram the on-board PICs much more cheaply.
That is so cool! I was watching the video and thinking to myself, this robot is really really awesome. And then the ping sensor popped out and I was utterly amazed. Incredible job ctc
Amazing. This is coming along really nice. Are you actually planning this design out or are you kind of improvising as you go? It seems as though you are learning a lot of new concepts from this project and I’m sure a lot of design techniques will make there way into Walter 2.0. I can definitely see you design something like this guy did in the following link:
