Cookie Monster

It only took forever, but I was finally able to update the cookie monster project at RobotBox.net. For some reason the site decided to frown upon my text entries and photo uploads.

This little robot I plan to use to desktop experiments and as a portable robot for education use and show and tell events. He was cheap to make. Quick to make. Easy to carry places and cute!! :-)

Servo POWER!

Powering more then 2-3 servos on a robot can became a rather large pain in the side. I've never addressed the concern for powering several servos at once before with out either burning out a voltage regulator or just using batteries in the proper range for the servos.

With my new robot David, a small humanoid, about the size of a toddler, I needed to power 6 servos from a 12 source. David's power is going to be a 12volt SLA rechargeable battery, but for now is is powered by a plug in Ac-DC source. Originally I designed a power system with a 12 volt regulator (7812) to provide power to a (7805) 5 volt regulator for logic circuits and a (7806) 6 volt regulator for the servo power. I soon found my design was flawed in several ways as all of my regulators were getting hot and in certain circumstance they would go into thermal shutdown and stop working.

I really wanted to create a power system that was simple, cheap and would provide all of David's power needs from a single power source. His power needs include Basic Stamp IIe, a mini Serial Servo Controller II board, (6) standard servos, a laser tag gun, several sensors for motion and object detection, (2) 12V dc drive motors and PWM control boards for the DC motors. When Davids motors are running, the amperage demands can really add up.

Through discussions on the TRCY.org Yahoo Messageboards, several members contributed ideas to my issues which lead me to discover a few things.

1.) I needed to get rid of the 7812 12volt regulator, as it was rated for 1 amp, it was doing none of the other systems any good.

2.) I was mistakenly powering the mini Serial Servo Controller II board from the 7805 5volt source. The documentation states the logic power needs to be 7-15 volts as the board has it's own regulator.

3.) I had no heatsink or supporting filtering caps on the 7805, I added a heatsink and a 10uf cap on the input side of the 7805 regulator.

4.) The 7806 was doing me no good as the servos did not need that much power. I replaced the 7806 with an interesting setup for dual 7805 regulators wired in parallel, with heatsinks and 2 filtering 220uf caps and a filtering 100nf cap.

5.) The 12volt dc motors and PWM control boards get their power from 12 volt power source, not through a 7812 regulator like I was trying to use.

6.) Large diodes like the 1N4001 can help drop the input voltage down going into 7805 regulators by as much as a volt for each diode used. When you consider ever volt over what the regulator requires is often wasted as heat, diodes can come in very handy.

This method so far is working well for me. I did find it hard to find good reference sources for powering more than 2-3 servos from anything other than directly from a battery source rated for the needs of the servos. So I wanted to share what I learned from my experience.

Heatsinks are a MUST! Caps help a lot! Discussing your designs problems in a group like TRCY is a wonderful resource!

As an added note, a couple of good suggestions that the discussion in the TRCY group offered were to use a premade 1.5 amp regulator board: http://www.wrighthobbies.net/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=146, as suggested by Eddy Wright of http://www.wrighthobbies.net

And another interesting idea I might try in the future is to use an individual 7805 regulator for each servo. This prevents an overdraw of current and will help reduce heat. My dual setup works for, but considering how cheap 7805 regulators can be when purchased in bulk, it's an interesting design idea submitted by "David" AKA robots42

Another product I came across that looks promising is a 10w Adjustable Switching Regulator designed to fit in the space a of 78xx series regulator: http://www.robotshop.com/dimension-engineering-de-swadj-1.html

P.S. I want to thank HVLabs for posting their circuit design online, which is where I got the idea for my modified dual 7805 regulator setup. See the original circuit here: http://www.hvlabs.com/serservo.html

Christmas Came Early

So my wife and I are really terrible at waiting to give gifts, so we had our Christmas gift exchange last Sunday. My wife got me some really awesome robot related goodies!

I got some much needed new books, as you can see "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind", which I previously recommended as a good A.I. related book. I got "Hardware Interfacing with RobotBASIC", because I really want to learn more about this free software package called RobotBASIC. I got "Arduino + Android Projects for the Evil Genius" because my wife and I both have Android 2.2 tablets and I'd like to see if they can be used for robotics and while I dont have an Ardunino yet, this book might inspire me to get one.

My wife also got me some new wire ties, cause I use the heck out of wire ties! A nice new set of wire jumpers for bread boarding, a much needed new set of wire cutters with really comfortable grips and a Parallax Propeller Servo Controller USB.

Another interesting book I just got and is not pictured, is "Growing Up with Lucy, How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps", by Steve Grand. I'm looking forward to reading this and learning more about Steve's ideas and theories.

Can't wait to read all my books and play with my new toys.

Book reviews

I've been reading several book related to Artificial Intelligence with focus on human mind development. After all, if you seek to create a machine intelligence similar to the way to human mind works, it makes sense to study how the human mind works, develops and learns.

After reading several books, I have concluded that no one person know how the human mind works in it's full detail. Our human science simply does not tell us enough to copy or replicate the exact way the human mind works.

They are many theories on how the human mind works and I conclude that none of them are provided correct or false at this time. Whatever theory you prescribe to, in my opinion is no worse or better then any other. It comes down to matter of choice and which theory seems to match you design needs better.

I'm coming to the conclusion that to achive artificial intelligence, it might be more helpful to free our minds from the dogma of all the theories floating around and pick the parts we like we combine them in new ways to create new types of thinking machines.

One really good book I read was:
“Basic Instinct: The Genesis of Behavior”,
by Mark S. Blumberg, A neuroscientist at the University of Iowa, Copyright, 2005

--Darwin says roughly that, any action we take or make, without any experience and without any knowledge of why the action if performed, could be said to be an instinct or instinctive. --

This book was a really good study on instincts and if you want to study AI or robotics control I think you need to study instincts.

Another wonderful book I read was:
“The Power of Your Subconscious Mind”, by Joseph Murphy, Ph.D., D.D.
He was the Minister-Directory of the Church of Divine Science in Los Angeles for almost three decades, Copyright 2008

--You are the beliefs taking shape, image by image, light and shadow there in your subterranean darkroom (your subconscious). In a moral sense, you subconscious is totally neutral, willing to look on any habit as fitting, whether or not you are the world deem it good or bad. That is why when we blithely drop negative thoughts into our subconscious, into this darkroom of ours, time and time again, we are so surprised to see these dark thoughts finding expression in our day-to-day experiences and relationships…time and time again.--

This book really demystified for me what the subsconscious mind is and how it behaves.

This next books, had some interesting thoughts in, but I did not find it as helpful as the books I mentioned aboved.
“The Genius in All of Us” by, David Shenk
He is a author of other books and correspondent for TheAtlantic.com and has contributed to National Geographic, Slate, the New York Times, Gourmet, Harper’s, The New Yorker, NPR and PBS, copyright 2010

This books focus mostly on how our genes effect us, but in a dynamic way. The books a long way to explain that there are a lot of missconceptions about genes, for instance lets say both of your parents were doctors or lawyers, it does not mean that genetically you are predisposed to be a successful doctor or lawyer as well.


“Intelligence and How to get It”, by Richard E. Nisbett, copyright 2009, Professor at University of Michigan, Ann Harbor
Not a very good book for AI research, it does not make the subject easy to understand, the conclusions are not clearly defined and it focus a lot on education and the reasons for why school children take IQ tests and how the results are useful and how to apply them. The conclusions that are stated I don’t personally care for.

“Robot Intelligence: An Advanced Knowledge Processing Approach”, By Honghai Liu, Dongbing Gu, Robert J. Howlett and Yonghuai, Liu, copyright 2010
This book is awful for real world examples. It gives a very high level overview of outdated concepts. At the very little the concepts are at least 10 years old. It gives a lot of math. If you are wanting a PhD in physics and also interested in robotics, then this book might be a good bridge.

“The Birth of The Mind”, by Gary Marcus, copyright 2004
--Autodidact
The mechanisms that allow the brain to rewire its self get exploited internally. Internally generated signals are used to transmit types of test patterns to simulate sensory information to columns to neurons used for sensor processing. This allows babies to hone their sensory processing in the womb and helps the eye, ears and other sensory inputs to be calibrated and ready for live input.--

This book was awesome! It had a large section on how language works in our minds not just to form words and communicate but is also used in memory to help store large concepts. Language is also used to help use plan actions and rehears what we are going to do. This book is worth reading!

Hope you enjoy my book reviews.

as always, Happy Roboting! =)

New How to Videos

I post some new videos of the assembly process for the ArdBot robot kit/chassis from BudgetRobotics.com You might have seen this bot resently in Servo Magazine.

Pt1 Into
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzo8Qv2LR_0

pt2 x-wheel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wJ-fM-c0IY

pt3 Servo Bracket
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGXaL7PlcDA

pt4 Putting it all together
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PPam9Go5jU

Windows 7 TTS voice Anna

So after a good 6 hours trying to get Windows7 to accept other TTS (text to speech) voices other than the default Anna voice I have concluded that until Microsoft patches this it is not possible to change the voice of Anna for text to speech.

To my shock, I can't adjust Anna's settings even under regedit, as those settings are block from altering even as the administrator.

Why on earth MicroSoft would deem Anna's voice to be the best and not allow the older XP TTS voices like Sam, Mike, Mary or others to run I do not know. I read in a blog that installing the MS Speech SDK would install the other voices and at least allows you to call them and use them in other programs like under Visual Studio 2010 applications, but alas, this also was wrong. You can install the Speech SDK that was designed for WinXP or older versions of windows and you will see the additional voices under the regedit and the TTS voice recognition controls as a valid voice, but when you select them you will get errors and they remain un-useable.

I read in a MS blog that the reason for only allowing Anna to work was some song and dance story about how Anna's voice was more realistic and the other voices would not sound as good so they were locked out from use and the settings were preset fined tune to sound the best and that's why you can't really adjust the voice settings like you would like to.

Maybe Windows 8 will fix this, probably not. Maybe they will at least include a male voice. In any case if you use TTS in Windows7 be ready to get used to Anna's voice. Oh, XP, how I miss you!! lol =)

Book Spotlight:



I got my autographed copy of the 4th edition of Robot Builder's Bonanaza from the author Gordon McComb. I've loved this book since I was kid and would check out the 1st edition every 2 weeks from the local Middletown, OH Library. This 4th edition Gordon is the sole author and he provides a wonderful update to the book filled with updated hands on projects.

This book really is a bible for robot builders. The projects covered walk you through construction, working with materials, how to use tools, what parts you needs, mobile robot drive trains, motor and server control, sensors, communications, microcontrollers and programming. It is a amost have for any robot builders!

http://www.amazon.com/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb/dp/0071750363

It's been a while...

Well it's been a while since I posted on my blog, my bad! I've been extra busy at work and working on projects for people. Something neat I worked on for my wife was getting software for her Cricut Expressions die cut, cutting machine that would allow her to cut any design from any picture. Really cool stuff. Normally you are limited to what the cartridges included to cut anything with a Cricut. The software I got really opens up the usefullness of the product. E-mail me if you are interested in the details.

My other project has been for my 11yr old brother-in-law Daniel. Daniel loves the Dukes of Hazzard tv show, especially Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane. He loves to pretend he is Roscoe. So when his mom had a problem with his little tikes Hummer and it needed repaired I figured, why not fix it up like Roscoe's police car while I was fixing it.

That turned out to be a bigger project than I thought. First its hard to take the plastic molding off those types of cars. Second the gas switch had a broken wire and shorted out ground so I had to re-wire that. The stickers were all faded and needed to come off, but those stickers are so hard to take off its not even funny!!! I had to use a power sander and mineral spirits to take them off.

After that several coats of white plastic spray paint in primer, flat and finally gloss, it started to look pretty nice. I took my police siren out of my Mustang and gave it to Daniel along with some of my flashy police lights. He got to pick where to put them. Below are the results. I ended up having to coat the new sheriff stickers I printed out, both side with DIY lamenating sheets then screwing them into the plastic body. It works, its not perfect, but it should last as long as he can drive it and cares to play Dukes of Hazzard. =)

If you ever work on a little car like this, take pictures of the steering wheel, steering column and steering linkage to the front wheels, because getting it back together correctly was quit challenge for me since I did not take pictures when taking it apart. :-)

Vb.net Serial Control

If you are looking to do a serial link to a micro controller in VB.Net I found a couple of great sites with tutorials and downloads:

http://www.innovatic.dk/knowledg/SerialCOM/SerialCOM.htm

and

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/37361-serial-port-communication-in-vbnet/

Both are great tutorials if you are looking to jump start your project.

Robot Vision

My robot vision experimentation so far is not going well. I think I'm expecting too much too soon. I use RoboRealm (http://www.roborealm.com/) which does a pretty good job of color and motion tracking, but if I change lighting condition that will change the way RoboRealm sees objects and colors because the light will be reflected differently which makes it hard to find settings that will work from dusk to dawn.

OpenCV can be a great tool. I downloaded the latest version 2.2 from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/ and to use it more easily with Visual Studio and VB.net I found and downloaded the EMGU openCV .net wrapper from here: http://www.emgu.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Now once you get both installed, the EMGU folder had a sample solution you can open in Visual Studio which gives you sample programs from WebCam to Face Detection and so on. Now the draw backs are the Face Detection sample for VB.Net is written to work with a static image. What I want to do is live video face recognition. One would think combining the sample of the WebCam plus the face detection would be straight forward but so far all I have produced is errors.

My searching on the net have revealed several "so-called" tutorials that give incomplete code samples and wonderfully frustrating videos of people with face detection software working, but never provide enough information to actually reproduce the desired effect.

I think in the long run a robot or AI program would do well to use several sources for video imaging and I'd like to work towards using both RoboRealm and OpenCV to create modules that will give my creations the ability to see and track objects and people but so far it is a task that is easier said than done.

Bubby's Manual

Bubby's manual is complete. If you are interested you can download a .pdf copy here: http://ratliff7.tripod.com/robotics.htm I'm working a an upgrade to the drive motor system. I'm sure there will be a few more updates to Bubby as time goes on.

YES WE CAN.....

Yes we can program our Basic Stamps wirelessly. YES WE CAN!!

What's that? You say Parallax engineers for years have been saying it is not possible? That you can not do it because the nature of the communication protocol when connected to the computer and because wireless protocols can't communicate the data as required?

Well hold on to your hats my friends because I just programmed a Basic Stamp II wireless!!

Muuhahahahahaha, your Stamps are belong to me!

Okay, where is what I used, a wireless USB hub. It's an IOgear GUWH104KIT which included a wireless USB dongle you connect to your computer and a wireless hub you can connect 4 USB devices too (as long as they are not Webcams or speakers). You can read about the device from here: www.iogear.com/product/GUWH104KIT Currently you can purchase it from here for around $30 usd: http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/58-14255&CAWELAID=552469334 I got mine from www.ebay.com

It might be hard to see in all the mess, but connect to my robot's Basic Stamp II is the wireless USB hub, through an IOgear serial to USB converter (not the one Parallax sells) which is connected wireless through the USB link to a Windows7 laptop. Not too bad huh? So if your dream is to program a Basic Stamp wirelessly, this might be the solution for you. The down side is it will not support webcams or speakers of any kind. I was counting on it to transmit my webcam data as well. Oh Well, can't win them all.

Bubby is back home

Bubby and I before returning him home just after the new year. Still have not finished his manual yet, but it was good to see him returned home. Not everything worked on him as planned. The voice board I had in mind to install fried. The motor control board there were in home did not want to work. His programming was a little tricky too. But overall it was a good upgrade from when I first brought him home I think.

Next in store of Bubby is the completed of his manual to detail is circuits and construction. And then we might pick an upgraded motor control to make is drive and naviagation easier to control.