Adriana Queiroz is a talented singer and dancer, and she wanted to include a visual component on her set, we talked a lot on how could we achieve a good result and IMHO I love it. André Almeida designed the lights setup integrated all the set, lights and shadows in a beautiful engagement!
This is just samples of my visual work:
I SEE YOU TOO, is the 2nd version of the original ICU
This version gained an upgrade in both hardware and software.
The hardware is mostly based on servocity.com pan and tilt systems.
This is a work in progress, until now what is implemented is Face Detect with the openCV library for Processing.
Next stage is to implement a more robust face and emotions detection and this will run on top of an inverse kinematics algorithm. What we want the most is ICU2 to be a living organism, with a complex behavior tree system.
Magabot is an open hardware and software robotics platform designed to stimulate creative minds.
Any robot with a computer is a very powerfull robot, and because all laptops have a camera, a screen, speakers, microphone, batteries and usb interfaces, your robotics experience will be empowered with Magabot.
This project is being developed in a partnership with IDMind, Artica and with the participation of Francisco Dias.
The Software:
Many applications are being developed right now, follow colors, wall follower, face detection, among many others.
We will provide interfaces for VisualStudio, .NET, c#, c++, openFrameWorks, Processing, Arduino, Flash, Unity3D, MAXMSP, PD and if you feel like you want to develop your own interface you will be welcome too, we give full credits on everything.
You will be able to download apps for the Magabot, to develop your own apps, and if you feel they deserve money, you will be able to sell them too.
The hardware:
The hardware is made with rigid PVC and a differential drive chassis with highly precise encoders on both motors at the commands of an Arduino and a customized shield. You’re completely invited to change and adapt it to your needs.
The basic setup integrates:
– PVC chassis with DC motors with encoders;
– Three Infrared-sensors on the bottom to detect stairs or lines;
– Two bumpers on the front to detect collisions;
– Three RGB leds if you are in the mood for some tuning;
– A battery sensor to know how if it is in the need for some juice;
– I2C bus on top to connect any I2C devices;
– A 7.2v battery and a charger.
Add-ons built at the moment:
– Pack of 5 Maxbotix sonar sensors with PVC supports to connect to the upper I2C BUS;
– Other add-ons are beeing developet at the moment.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
We lauched the magabot.cc site today, this website will be a repository for informatiom, source code, apps, hacks, support forum, and a place to buy Magabots.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Magabot is a protoproduct, we are commercializing our open source and open hardware best prototype at a low cost:
If you buy one you will automatically enter on our beta test program, we invite you to share your experiences and to post your results, we will also provide you with support for you to be able to use it, change it, and play with it.
The current price for the platform wthout the sonar kit is 250€ plus VAT.
The current price for the sonars kit is 100€ plus VAT.
If you need more information please contact us: info [at] magabot [dot] cc
This TEDxEdges was a huge event, and Artica marked its presence on stage with the Einstein VideoPlayer adapted to play the videos between the talks, and with a video mapping system to display the data captured by biometric PLUX sensors.
There were 4 gloves on the room, and each person wearing a glove would be able to send its emotions to the assigned ‘TEDx’ letter.
I went to stage with André to briefly present Artica’s presence on the event, they mentioned the Farruscos playing sumo, the Magabot in telepresence mode being driven by Francisco Dias and finally what was behind the ‘TEDx’ letters.
In the foyer there were an arsenal of 5 Magabots all available to be remotelly controlled in Telepresence. This system is made with Skype and simple interface running on the robot side. So all you need is a Skype account and nothing more.
Gareth, Voodoobot, Birdmun and Ro-Bot-X from LetsMakeRobots were very present on the site, some of them even went outdoors and had a couple of adventures!! :)
This video shows an Avatar to Avatar encounter!!! Its me and Gareth giving a kiss.. lol
This is another view of the Foyer:
Then there were a troop of 10 Farruscos, Francisco Dias coded two of them to play sumo, and they are really fun to watch!!
Farruscos did made the day of kids! They were completly stunned with the little bots!
Artica’s team having lunch, the bests!! :) Fernando Gomes, André Almeida, Francisco Dias, Gonçalo Lopes and Guilherme Martins.
Artica’s founders, Guilherme Martins and André Almeida:
“É Como Diz o Outro” is a comedy performed by Miguel Guilherme and Bruno Nogueira, directed by Tiago Guedes and produced by UAU. Our commitment was to create a video scene with a street landscape and a building front. This video started early in the morning and went through several stages during a normal work day ending in the evening.
Video after the break:
Our software “EinsteinVideoPlayer” evolved a lot with this creation, edge-blend was implemented and now can be controlled by the Light Mixer via DMX.
The projection rig can be seen on the top, two projectors filled the scene front.
Last Wednesday Artica lectured a Motoruino workshop at AltLab.
Beside all the participants there were more than a hundred watching a live stream on Ustream, people from Viseu, Guimarães, Porto, Évora, Madrid and many more places I believe.
The central theme was Motoruino and motors such as Servos, DC motors, Steppers and Linear actuators.
In the end we had Farrusco working in Obstacle Avoidance and Following Light mode.
This is a functional timeline made in processing, for now it is limited to 10 keyframes but in the future this will be solved with the ArrayList() power.
More things to add:
– interpolation, reset, drag and re-organize keyframes
ICU has been sleeping for a while but was awaken suddenly because I was invited to an exhibition at Flausina, a new born association in Lisbon.
Complexity is always a welcome thing around here and the bot was presented with two more servo motors and all the software has been re-written. And because I needed to simulate its movements I coded an application in Processing in a way that I could test all the non-dangerous angles. Inverse kinematics is way to advanced for my taste and I think I can call this a “forward kinematics simulator”. This simulator gives also the possibility to generate individual sine waves for each motor, minimum and maximum range of motion, an interpolator for smoothness and frequency for speed.
Unfortunately I don’t have any decent video of photos of the Flausina exhibition, I leave you with a video of the bot in the office with the processing application.
TODO list:
– capability to save presets
– timeline with keyframes, play and stop buttons
– upgrade this servos to more powerful and digital servos
– upgrade all the structure to enhance weight distribution
– create a mask in silicon/rubber and give this bot a crazy new look
– everytime a face is detected it will say something on Twitter and upload the picture in an online gallery
Source code can be downloaded here.
All for now.. Roger, over and out.
Photo at Flausina.
Since the first SWARS experience, I knew this could go A LOT further, but having Farrusco on a remote terrace where you could only have access by climbing an outside ladder.. I must confess, I never thought of such a thing, until… my friend Fernando Mendes (Cowork_LX) came to me with this crazy idea!
I loved the challenge, and wanted since the first moment to create a cool and easy to use physical interface and it came out a nice piece IMHO.
Then Farrusco with the wireless cam already built in for the first “Driving Farrusco” experience, I used two packs of batteries to enhance the play time (one battery pack is missing in the photo). This small wireless camera needs a lot of juice, and a little 9v batteries doesn’t feed it for to long, besides that it gives a very weak transmission with lots of interference, but with this 9.6v racing pack, it worked out really good!
And finally the video:
Some bits around the controller:
At the beginning I wanted to have four joysticks, one for each motor, one for pan and the other for tilt the camera.
\
It ended a bit complicated to operate and a learning curve was needed to get used to it, because this was going to manipulated by many people it needed to be simple and fast to learn.
[ FOTO MISSING showing the end result with two joysticks, a motoruino only with the necessary components and the xbee mount ]
