FYP Presentation 1 OURS, Explorer 27 the lost robot

SLIDES and VIDEO compilation

The Slides were made with multiple programs,

Adobe After Effect for the animations(I got my animation template online and edited it.)
Adobe Premiere Pro for converting the animation into GIF
Powerpoint slides for the slides.

Why use GIF for animation?  Because a video in slides is not loopable and have too much constrains, so if I separate one animation into 2 GIF (Appearing and Looping) and use the “Animation- Appear” function in Powerpoint in a well-timed manner, I could create an illusion that it is looping.

Example:

This is an “Appearing Animation” that plays automatically because it is a GIF, and a “Appearing Animation” will keep “Appearing” because GIF is in a loop, so when stacked with “Looping Animation”…..

This is the “Looping Animation” that automatically appears (With PPT’s Animation”Appear”) 3.2 seconds after the slide starts, so it will look like the animation flow somewhat nicely.

and when put together in PPT, it will look like this, this GIF have the “Looping Animation” played 8 times, after 8 times it will “Appear” again but just an example~ in the ppt, it will loop indefinitely until I click to the next slide.

That was how the slide was made! and I learn After effect for it because most of the animation i used in this slide could be applied in the UI of the robot (Remember i have a screen that needs User Interface, yes, thats the one.)

Also, The Lab coat i wore during the presentation was customized with the logo of OURS to have a more cohesive feel to the theme.

 

What had i learn in the presentation:

Antropomorphism in robotics

main issue in the fyp:
Fake Ai -> Belivability -> Lost -> Antropomorphism

LEM Solaris (movie and book, george clooney) , I robot russian Stalker

FYP Process 4: Construction, Unity and Lidar

Aluminium profile measuring and cutting

20mm*20mm aluminium profile was used to construct the internal frame because it is easy to work with, lightweight and durable.

(Just for the record, I did not work in the dark but turned off the light for documentation purposes only.)

3D Modeling

This is the mounting adapter created in tinkercad to match the steel bearing, the motor and the wheel to the 20mm*20mm aluminium profile. the adapter for the suspension was created later as the suspension had not reach at the time of modeling the mounting adapter, however the 3 part fit nicely with just one try!

3d printing

Frame constructions and 3D printing part assembling.

many different screws, bolt and nuts were used to construct the frame and attach the wheel mount on the aliminium profiles.

Suspension Addition

The suspension is required as the Mecanum Wheel require friction to move in any direction, so the suspension does not only reduce the vibration, but to force the wheel to have traction with the floor at any point of time even on uneven surfaces.

Unity:
Animation done in Unity,

IlSample quest screen (there will be another screen to show the map or something)

These 3 were drawn in Adobe illustrator in separate layers and imported into unity to animate it.

Lidar:

Lidar uses infared laser to sense the distance in a 360 degree manner, it could give thousands of readings per second and the program will calculate them and map it out through a point cloud.

I bought a Lidar from China to try it out and the 1 I bought was C0602 

when using the program that was provided, the lidar works perfectly, but since I am going to use it in Unity, there are problems as Unity runs on C#(a programming language) while the SDK(Software Development Kit) runs in C++, although it is not impossible to write a bridge between the 2 language or write another code in C# to use the Lidar directly in unity, it was out of my capabilities to do so after trying for a week, and while researching for how to do it, i came across another Lidar that provided the Unity codes, however the code does not work on the current lidar I have……

SO, simple solution to this problem, either i ditch the idea of using a lidar OR I buy the Lidar with the Unity code and I put the current Lidar I have for sale online (at higher price than I bought it of course.) And of course, I chosed the 2nd option, to sell the one I have and buy the other 1 that provide a unity code. Carousell, my best friend.

 

FYP Soul – Why?

Why robot? Why Guiding robot? Why a whole system including a company, a backstory of how the Robot came to FYP exhibition?

First thing first, Why am I building a robot for FYP?

The answer is much more than just because I like it (and of course I do!)
Culturally, there are two opposing opinion of a robot – A western one which threaten us by stealing our and eventually bring us to annihilation, A Japan one which is seemed as hero and seemed to enhance the quality of life, since 16th century after the invention of karakuri puppet, the Japanese enjoys seeing something moving automatically and it is still really fascinating to see something that moves by itself now as we anthropomorphize the object unconsciously. I personally think that robotic will be the next advancement to the world as our computation power increase exponentially, the only physical way we could bring these newer technology into a good use is through something that uses technology and have a physical/tangible characteristic, just like a robot, albeit the term robot was loosely used, the general idea is similar- Physical object that moves without human through a set of pre-determined  protocol.

so, why specifically a guiding robot?

This is because I want to be of some use to our FYP batch, Guiding robot’s main purpose is to serve just one function- to bring the visitor to a student booth, which will increase the exposure of the student. Even if throughout the whole show duration, my robot only managed to bring one visitor to one student’s booth and the visitor enjoyed the booth, I would consider my FYP a success as I helped someone(visitor or student) to experience the FYP show in a slightly better way.

How about a lost guiding robot?

For now, I will be building a lost guiding robot which need the visitor to help to locate the student’s booth, although it seemed counter-intuitive to make a LOST Guiding robot as the worst thing that a guiding robot could do is to get lost, however when I go the opposite way(metaphorical), the end result still serve the same function, a robot which guide(narratively, it will be guided) the visitor to the booth. This way, the user experience/interaction with the robot will be different as they will feel like they will be helping the poor robot to find and complete it’s task and the visitor will feel like they have a sense of duty/accomplishment when finding the booth.

How does this work?
All of these stems from the word “Altruism“- the belief in or practice of disintegrate and selfless concern for the well-being of others. In this case, sacrificing the user’s own time to help a random robot.(which by logical thought, they do not need help and does not have feeling, however human is a complex thing and probably will not do things by logic)
As helping others will give us a sense of purpose and satisfaction, I will want to instill this idea into my project to make the user to feel like they are really helping the robot and feel the satisfaction when they complete the task(which in turn makes a happier visitor and a memorable experience for them.)

Why a whole system including a company, a backstory of how the Robot came to FYP exhibition?

This is to adapt the power of fictional narrative to change people’s attitude towards social change(robot in FYP exhibition) by using the method of narrative persuasion- a method that uses narrative transport to persuade us to change our mind, behavior and see the world differently and to put things into context even when the story is a fantastical.

 

 

Research to be done:
Interaction of human and robot
Social Robot
Programmed behavior
Slot machine reward system

 

 

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/human-robot/

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/inhuman-kind/

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/robot-revolution/