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Project "Max"

Max is my latest project. It is essentially an animatronic head with servos, lights and speakers. This is a first for me and I am slowly learning that it is very difficult to contruct an articulated head and keep it looking more "robot like" and less "bolted together".

Johnny 5

You may think that this design has been based on the Johnny 5 robot used in the Short Circuit films, but I can assure you, it has been purely coincidental that it has turned out like this!

Max has taken about a month to contruct so far and features;

- A High Resolution webcam with face tracking (Microsoft VX6000)

- Multifunction second eye (White light, status and mood indication)

- Pan and Tilt platform for the head, controlled by 2 servos

- Audio amplification and speakers directed towards the front of the head for more authentic speech directioning.

- Oil Dampend tilt motion for a less jerky movement

- The head itself is contructed from a CD Rom drive case and added to with 1mm thick formed aluminium sheet.

- Mouth is audio sensitive, so that the head appears to talk (resembles the Johnny 5 robot). The design is based around a PIC microcontroller running a code that continually performs an ADC on the audio signal and turns on/off upto 6 leds (6+6 in either direction). See assembler code here, for pinouts, read the top of the assembler header.

- Eye lid shutters to express emotion that are controlled indepently via 4 servos.

- Microphone for Speech input

Videos:

Demonstration of Max reading aloud

Or download below

WMV 7.45Mb

Demonstration of Max's Servo controlled Eyebrows

Or download below

WMV 9Mb

Demonstration of a conversation with Max and Pan/Tilt Servo Joystick control

Or download below

WMV 25Mb

How does the head move?

Servos are controlled with my Serial Servo Controller that can control upto 8 servos. The schematics, firmware and software are available in the Serial Servo Control section.

How do you interact with it?

I am currently using a Chatbot program and Dragon Naturally Speaking to give Max the ability to chat with people.

At the moment though, Max uses ordinary Text-to-speech to voice pre-written words and is initiated manually by an operator (me).

Todo:

- Build a body for Max, still deciding on whether to use legs (a BiPed (very difficult) or Tracks (easy option, but dull).

- Finish the Chatbot software, first version is available for testing under the AIML section.

- Use sensors throughout the robot to enable it to be autonomous.

Related pages:

- Serial Servo Controller

- AIML

- Speech