Robotic – Final Project Prototype Part 4 – Unlimited Revisions.

There is only testing and remodeling, testing and remodeling after i went to simlim to look for a battery 2 weeks ago.

After that, the battery could also power no more than 3 servo at once so I purchases some AC-DC 6V 10A converter online and had been waiting for its arrival since then.

meanwhile waiting, all I did was re-model almost everything again and again…. and I also downloaded ZBrush- a 3d sculpting software and learnt it just for me to sculpt the turtle appearance since i have to learn it sooner or later and luckily I tried it now so I know that there are actually a lot of problems in my current structure when place in the shell I modeled afterwards.

After last post, I’ve built a bigger base mount for the turtle.

This was originally the rough full size for the turtle base, Version1, Version 2 with 2 arm motor attached, and Version 3 with no Arm motor attached.

And I downloaded Zbrush and started to learn how to sculpt something in it and MANNNNN IT IS HARRDDDDD

And then I printed it out in smaller scale to see how it feels.

And to check which layout should work.

 

 

and since after I did more research on turtle, I realize that the bone structure of the turtle wasn’t straight and so I tilted the motors to give it an angular tilt for it to move more like a turtle.

then I tested the structure of this configurations.

I also modeled a arm motor connector and found out that this is WAAAYYY to long for it to work properly, and another problem is that there is still not enough tilt, so I changed from a 45 degree tilt to a 22.5 degree tilt.

This is the Version 4 and Version 5 of the motor mount, I’ve decide to make it higher so to be able to turn the arm in the correct direction, I’ve also tried to add the middle servo which will control the turtle head retraction and head/tail turning.

This is with Version 5 base and version 2 Motor connector which are much shorter.

Next, I further edit the turtle shell and upscale it to see how it fits into my system, however i found many problems here like it doesnt fit well. Since I can make adjustments to the layout, I decided to use another method to do the leg mechanism.

By combining this lever system straight into the leg.

The 4 generation of motor connector.

This should be the mechanism I will use for the leg, I hope it works.

for now, I have to test them out again.

Final Project Rehearsal

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Tuesday, 24 October 2017

In our final project rehearsal, we are focusing more on the grid appearance and the technical aspect of the overall feel, we also discussed and understand the flow through this rehearsal.

 

In our discussion, we decided on a few combinations like what to film and how should film it, also the passing of phone is rather tricky because we are afraid that we will drop the phone that doesn’t belong to us.  there are many more fine tuning needed to be done, but for now, we will see what these 4 piece will look like together and decide what combination will we do.

 

This is the segment where we pass the phone to the next grid, we hope to achieve an effect that feels like we are moving in a straight line instead of passing in circle, we will only know the final effect when we view it from the grid.

and this, just one video alone wont have any effect, but we hope to achieve a panorama spin effect through this when the grid is out. 

We are just as excited because of the fact that we doesn’t know how the true effect of these rehearsal will be like and we are waiting for a surprise which may or may not be what we would like it to be. The first time we see the final outcome will be the first time our class sees it.

 

 

Co-Broadcasting Experience and Thoughts.

This Co-Broadcasting thing is definitely new to all of us!
the best part of the co-stream is that we can communicate to each other with very little lag between in comparison to the usual broadcast where there will be atleast 7 seconds with optimal connections. Co-Broadcasting could possibly be used in our final project as our idea for the final project is to go through the barrier of the broadcase and “appear” on the other side of the stream. When doing our two occasion in the Co-Broadcasting, we’ve got some interesting shots and we tried to build towards our final project.

Co-Broadcasting 1:

Posted by Su Hwee Lim on Thursday, 12 October 2017

 

Co-Broadcasting 2:

Costream test 2 Su Hwee Lim

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Wednesday, 18 October 2017

 

 

This is really interesting as I am shooting SuHwee while she was shooting someone else. it feel like a real time behind of the scene, and SuHwee followed my hand sign in this and it gets really confusing that whose hand is that?

 

Tiffany doing her dance and we somewhat tried to learn afterwards and I zero talent in dancing. also, there is a minuscule lag over here.

 

This is a take from our second co-Broadcasting which we focused on testing for Final project. we did the face merge thing like in the adobe connect.

 

Since we have the same object, we decided to use it as our advantage and “pass” to the other person and merge it on screen so it appeared to connect in the split of the screen.

 

Another Adobe Connect trick, so now our body parts are not limited to spatial restriction and can travel through the third space. (somewhat)

 

This is my favourite part of the whole stream. it looks really good as all the detail matches up, even the hands in the watch are the same(of course, its live at the same time).

 

 

and we tried to synchronize our movement which is REALLLYYY difficult.

 

Lastly, as Makoto suggested, the side profile it kind of difficult but it is really interesting if we can get it to synchronize and turn our face. Which we did and had a relative success 

 

Some Observation I’ve made in the two broadcast.

1 – The lighting is really important, in our first stream, the both video seemed really nice next to each other, but in our second stream, as the lighting is different, it is very difficult for the viewer to believe that we passed the item over since the lighting is way off even when it is the same thing. Like Bao and Makoto’s co-broadcasting, since it was taken in the afternoon, it look really nice because they have similar lighting.

2 – There needs to be communication between both of the broadcasters so that we can coordinate our actions better be simple thing like a count down but we need to think of a way to remove the countdown.

3 – if we want to pass thing over or anything that require the use of the split, we must do it so so both of the broadcaster can slowly merge the object on the split.

 

Overall, there must be more testing for us to fine tune our actions and the difficulty level will be much higher if there are 4 broadcaster at the same time. Maybe one way is that we can use the co-broadcast as a communication tool instead of the final piece so we will have two phone each, both phone broadcasting at the same time while one is in the co-broadcasting mode and another is on the normal broadcasting mode so that we could communicate through the co-broadcast live.

Interactive Devices Final Project: Obsoleting Instruments Process 2.

After the last post where I’m almost done with the laser reader and there are still improvements to be made to it, but I will focus on other component and will come back to make it sound nicer if I still have time, for now, I need to slowly build towards the completion of Obsoleting Instruments first… I will need to a way to feed the music sheet into the laser at a constant speed, so after some research and thinking, I could use DC motors with gear box that drives the music sheet through a belt

system, so, with that in mind, I purchased some special rubberbands and the belt driver thing, as well as some gears and shafts and the plastic DIY construction pieces to test it out.

First, Since I’ve got the Landline Telephone, i need to clear the little plastic pieces inside to make room for all my components, and I thought it would be a simple task, but MANNNNNN ITS SOOOO INTENSIVE(because i dont have a proper tool to do it)

Theres a Chinese saying “Small knife cuts huge tree” its a torture and yet quite satisfying for me.

its like the loding screen, I can see the final point when doing it, so the hole need to go 1 round. and my finger hurts.

 

This thing tortured me, I tortured it back. Fair Game.

Slowly, i manage to cut all protruding parts except for the two longest one as i still need to close the top back and secure it.

and then put the belt and the belt wheel to check the distance required to have the just right tension as too tight it will not spin well and too loose it will come off easily.

I tried placing then together so they could sandwich the music sheet, but this is too near and it wont work well

and if I use a gear system, I could do more of the thing, but still need to consider about it.

After I got the usable distance, I proceed to 3D modeling the parts that is required.

The initial concept of the belt system. I know its abit overkill but.. I dont know where will it fail so I decided to give the music sheet full support, also, this was measured according to the belt length, Motor dimensions, phone dimensions, laser dimensions and the music sheet dimension to make sure they all fits. The complex base plate is to enable me to insert the belt after assembly.

 

 

 

I placed some holes to save some material and reduce printing time.

Then split the base into two part so that I can work on half and combine them later, I think it woule be much easier for me this way.. (And I dont have to print 6 hours just for the base.

 

It worked really well, but there is only one problem, my top cover of the phone could not close as it is slanted, so I have to shift the whole plate to the back, or place the top belt about 40% inwards but I cant just shift both belt wheel as there will be the laser reader there. so…

I will settle on my 6th one for now, since this is only half of the system, I need to get my music sheet up first for me to test the speed of the motor with this system since if half doesn’t work, nothing can work.

 

Pew Pew PEW. look at dem laZEERRRRR

 

I supposed it will work if i attach the motors to it. will upload another post once I’ve Progressed more.

Robotic – Final Project Prototype Part 3 – Understanding the Motors and Power Supply.

For weeks, I’d been thinking that my code was wrong hence I cant move more than 2 motor at the same time or it will corrupt the system….

And in the end, it wasnt my code, as I was using PCA9685 which is a servo driver which I bought online and thought that I could control 16 motors at the same time, Yes, it could and the code can work.. the problem is the power supply. NEVER HAVE A SERVO DRIVER’S MOTOR POWER SUPPLY POWERED STRAIGHT FROM THE ARDUINO!

I finally found out today that was the main reason, when the motor drains too much of the Arduino’s power, it will brownout, causing erratic behaviors in the motors which was my main problem up till now, so instead of limiting myself to code up to two motors to move at the same time, I could potentially move all 16 motors just by finding another power supply.


15:15- 16:10

 

My Brownout will occur when I run 4 servo at the same time, so 3 servo running simultaneously is the maximum for my current power supply, There are ways which I could solve this problem.

  1. Using a battery which could supply 6V power at 10A or more, after my research, battery are rarely rated at 6V and 10A is just too much for a battery, even if they do, it will drain the battery out really fast unless I am using a HUGE car battery on 12V and step down the supply using a Voltage Regulator.
  2. Using Multiple battery at 5 V or 6V and parallel them to increase their current, since this will be the most expensive out of all option, the only way possible to get this done is to series 4xAA battery and parallel multiple group of 4xAA to create a powerbank, the downside of this will be the voltage drop overtime due to lesser power in the battery.
  3. Using a power adapter with the 5V or 6V at 10A, and this will probably be more feasible due to the availability of 10A power adapter in the market, or I could use a 12V 10A power adapter along with a Voltage Regulator and step down it to 6V. I think this will be relatively doable because it will have a stable supply and I do not have to worry about recharging my battery, moreover, I might be able to supply power to my Arduino at the same time too.
In conclusion

I will try to find suitable power adapter along with voltage regulator, if this still don’t work as well as i thought it would work, I probably can use a capacitor to increase the current rating(I am still not sure how does this work, but I’ll figure out)

Interactive Devices Final Project: Obsoleting Instruments Process 1.

After the Initial concept, I’ve 3D modeled the Laser mount and Photoresistor mount.

And after the Laser mount was done and working great, I went ahead to print the Photo Resistor mount.

 

It is designed to hold the photo resistor and allow the connector of each Photoresistor to be protruded out so that I could solder the circuit with the pull down resistor right on the module to remove the need for having a breadboard in the Telephone as the space will be limited in it, and i guess this will be the more efficient way of doing thing while making sure all connections are secured.

The soldering took some time to complete but luckily for me, I only need to do it once, or so I thought… (some part broke when I bring this to school so I did re-solder it again.)

I also purchased an old Landline Telephone on Carousell, I must say that Carousell is a wonderful thing.

In the end, the only part that could be reused is the phone’s body, the speaker/handle/hearing thing, the buttons and the telephone wire.

 

Meanwhile, I started to write the code on Arduino for the Laser and Photoresistor.

The value will be higher than 800 when the laser shine directly on the Photoresistor and lesser than 100 when blocked, so I can simply write if( value <= 400), play tone 1.

 

After some coding, this is my prototype for the music player part which is to be installed into the Landline Telephone.

 

 

Robotic – Final Project Prototype Part 2 – Compacting Mechanical Systems.

After the Study model of the last part, where I stopped at the lever system and realize that it is not as strong as it should be, my improved method is to use 2 servo to do the same action, After a long time trying, I found out that the overall height of the servo will still be as high and as big as a standard MG 966R servo motor, and the MG966R will provide significantly higher torque than 2x SG90 at roughly the same height.

So my new solution to this is to use the heavier and stronger MG966R as the feet motor. Since they are relative big, I need a system to fully utilize the height and the movement of motors to make it as compact as possible. Since the center of the turtle shell is usually the tallest part, it make sense to stack the first rotating joint (the shoulder) above each other to greatly reduce the total size of the turtle by making it slightly taller.

Prototype of stacking the Shoulder motors, I’ve realized that the left motor should be at the bottom and right motor should be at the top as one will spin clock wise and other will spin counter clockwise to make it the same height when their pivot are not centralized.

 

Improved prototype of the system which reduces the shakiness of the Shoulder Motor(which is important as Shoulder is the first joint, if this vibrates, it will be amplified become very obvious in the feet.)

Un-centralized joint of the Shoulder Motor to Arm connector will result in centralized and same height of both left and right arm when in horizontal(walking) and vertical(back in shell) even when the shoulder motor are stacked(different height). Look at the green dot which is where the center of arm motor going to be.

 

after countless of testing to get the perfect balance of height in horizontal and vertical, this system should be able to progress into what I will use in the final, there are still improvements to be made in the base height of the Shoulder Motor as when the Arm spins, it will still touch the ground.

for now, it probably can walk and hide like this..

Next up is to further refine this system and find the suitable system for the Elbow joint.

 

 

Interactive Devices Final Project: Obsoleting Instruments Concept.

The speed of our advancing technology and the technology that is getting obsolete are on the same pace, 15 years ago, we were using Floppy Disks, 10 years ago, we were still using Compact Discs and the millennials now does not know what a Floppy Disk is. We still see CDs now but they are getting obsolete really soon as there are lesser devices playing them now.

Choosing of the Best Appliances.

For this project, I want to give new life to daily objects which are on the path of becoming obsolete by making them a musical instrument, there are many common appliances that are in this category and should be ancient in a few years time –

VCR
CRT TV( Cathode Ray Tube or also known as the old Fat TV)”
Remote Controllers
CD and all devices which plays them
MP3 Player
Old Gaming Console
Top Loading Washing Machine
Landline Telephone
Fax Machine
Public Payphones
Answering Machine
Slide Projector
Dial-up Modem
Basic Alarm System
GPS Units

Bold are appliances which are totally possible for this project since I want to make musical instrument and they naturally produces sound in their normal usage context.

Green are appliances which are Bold and their normal usage context have the interactions when the user use them, which make them exactly what I could use for INTERACTIVE DEVICES.

Image result for old gaming consoles

Since the signification of a Gaming Console is different for every individual, people plays different consoles and different game or not at all, it is difficult for me to create something that all the end user(during the End Of Year Show) will resonate with.

Image result for landline phone
The best of all will be the Landline Telephone as I am sure that most of the end user will have some interaction with it some point in their life and the basic function of a Landline Telephone is to receive a call or to make a call, this resulted in almost the same user interaction throughout the globe – making a call or when the Phone Ring = Pick up.

 

And the Instrument that I have in mind…

After my researches on musical instruments,
I’ve decided to use the musical box concept where the user could play music by inserting a sheet of musical notes and it will play music digitally.

This could be done by using a set of lasers and photo resistors to read the musical notes on a clear piece of plastic scrolling through the system.

There are 14 sets of Laser and Diodes due to the research I had done on music theory(not posted yet as it is still an ongoing research) whereas there are 8 notes in an octave but only 7 different notes in an octave C D E F G A B C, so by placing 2 octave next to each other, there will be 14 white keys C D E F G A B C D E F G A B as I chose to omit the last C so that it looks visually completed from the looks of piano keys.

And what about the black keys? since I don’t want to add in 10 keys for the major and minor (black), I could use a combination of the adjacent white key to produce the sound of a major and minor. For example if I want the C♯(D♭) key, I could have CD shaded at the same time to produce a C♯(D♭) sound.

Flow of usage

  1. The phone will look like a normal phone with an exception of a slot to insert the musical sheet into the system in the body of the phone.
  2. Nothing can be done when the phone does not ring or the user does not make a call.
  3. Scenario 1 – Phone Ring -> User pick up phone -> voice command user to insert the music sheet -> User insert music sheet -> the phone pull the music sheet -> User listen to the music.
  4. Scenario 2 – Phone does not ring -> User Pick up the phone -> User hear the *toot toot toot* tone of the land line phone -> User dial some number on the number pad -> User hear the tone of an outgoing call -> Voice command user to insert music sheet -> user insert music sheet -> phone pull the music sheet -> User listen to music.

 

Robotic – Final Project Ideas, Researches and Prototypes.

A Continuation from the previous Idea and Research, Part 1 where I wanted to do an Animatronic Turtle.

The Difference between a Turtle and a Tortoise is that all Tortoises are turtle and not all turtles are tortoise. Generally, Tortoise live on land and turtle lives in water most of the time, with exceptions which I’ll not go into. However in my Project, I’ve decided to use “Turtle” as I simply prefer the sound of Turtle more than Tortoise.

First thing.

How do Turtle/Tortoise walk?

Tortoise are cute! and the way they walk naturally are quite robotic =D

the “Hand” are much longer and the “feet” are much shorter in comparison. This is how a Tortoise retract its head, by bending its “neck” inwards. maybe I could emulate this.


29:43 – 30:20 where they talk about the locomotion of the tortoises

I could use a lever system to move the front and back legs so that I could use smaller motor and all 3 motor placed in the shell so the overall weight of the feet will be greatly reduced to allow me to use smaller/weaker motors.

From my research I’ve done and found this EEZYbotARM on Thingiverse which I could use it to study the mechanics I could potentially use in the feet of the Turtle.

The two motor is at the base of the mechanical arm(Typebot), in comparison to our typebot, This Typebot system is less efficient unless the torque of the motor far exceed the weight of the system and only a when there is a short (A) to (B) distance(longer fulcrum, more torque needed to turn it)

So to understand how fully it works and if there are any restrictions to this lever system, the best way is to having a study model to study how I could incorporate it into my Turtle. I also purchased a few servo few weeks ago and they also arrived so I used them in the study model.

The movement is really smooth and the movement coverage is definitely good enough for my turtle, However this system could barely carry its own weight as the base is relatively heavy, this Lever system could work great as a Type bot kind of project because doesn’t need to carry the base of the robotic arm, in my opinion, this probably wont work in my Turtle since each leg will still carry its motor weight because they are all in the shell, so having Motor(A) not carrying Motor(B) is of less importance since Motor(A) and Motor(B) will ultimately carry the weight of (A)+(B)+the mount+components+the shell in the end.

In Conclusion

I’ll need to find a more efficient system or use a bigger motor to do the work of lifting everything in the shell along with the motors and still able to cover the movements. Now my main concern will be

Weight of motor VS its Torque
Size of Motor (slightly bigger motor will result in MUCH BIGGER TURTLE which I’ll try to avoid as I wanted a COMPACT turtle, not a monster.)
Movements of motor especially within the shell.

 

 

 

Interactive Devices – Final Project Research 1: Brainstorming

For Interactive Devices Project, I Intended to do it as a solo project so that I could possibly learn more through the exploration process.

After some research, I’ve got 3 general ideas in mind which I might consider:

Wearable Devices:

  • Could be for Fashion

    – Something that look nice

  • Could be for Entertainment

    – Something that is amusing to the user/viewer

  • Could be for Practical uses

    – Something like an Air-condition system

  • Could be for medical purposes

Musical Devices:

  • Could be a totally new instrument that is not available in the market.

  • Could be a system which plays existing instruments:

    – Strum Guitar
    – Blow Pipes/Flute
    – Ring Bells

  • Incorporate the pendulum

    – Pendulum is a interesting object which produces beats
    – is rather amusing

  • Reads Music sheet and play it automatically

    – Could be like a music box

Magnetic Devices:

  • Magnets have really interesting properties
  • Could be a combination of permanent magnets and Electrical magnets.
  • Magnetic could result in levitation of objects which are really amusing

Conclusion

Overall, out of the 3 main categories of Wearable, Music Instrument and Magnetic devices, I like the idea of making an musical instrument more and my initial idea is a device which could read music sheets like a music box. I shall explore more on music box in the next research post.