Tag: Interactive

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.

 

 

Research Critique: Second Front

The Second Front performance was extraordinary and unlike anything that we’ve experience in internet art and culture, the performance is entirely within a virtual world(third space) where what was common in the Second Life was totally impossible in the real world that we live in(like physics and such).

To be really frank, I started the research about Second Front by reading the Assignment Post and watching the two video over there, IT MADE EXACTLY ZERO SENSE TO ME, I am like..

WHAT THE SHH IS HAPPENING? WHY DID THEY USE THE HELICOPTER WHEN THE BANK IS RIGHT BELOW THE MANSION? WHY DID THEY SIT ON THE MISSILE HAPPILY? WHERE DID THE MISSILE EVEN COME FROM? WHAT IS THIS FLOATING BALLET DANCER THING?  WHAT IS HAPPENING??
WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~~~~~~~~?

“A good piece of art gives you a sense of wonder but a piece of astonishing art make us feel foolish” but I felt really stupid after watching both of the video, because I must be too slow to not get the meaning/message of them. So I carried on in the researches by starting to understand what exactly Second Life is….

Wait… This Second Life is actually a really interesting “Game” that have no boundaries or whatsoever. Users could create their game character anyhow they want, make their character to do anything, build all sorts of structures and items in the game and there are even user using Second Life to raise funds for real life volunteer funding which I think is such a good use of third space as a medium to solve problem in the third world! 

 

Back to the topic of the work of Second Front

I think what Second Front was doing was really amazing as they are all from different country and meeting, planning and executing the performance in the third space while transcending any laws(physic or social) which is only possible in the third space, Grand Theft Avatar felt like a piece that was drove by the inner desire of human, it started with the characters in the “Evil Genius Mansion” with the dramatic music and I think this is a reflection of us dreaming to be a badass in some point of our life like having super power- able to fly, super strength etc. and in the Grand Theft Avatar scenario, they are the “Rich Evil Genius”(rich because of the helicopter which is totally unnecessary) whom disguise themselves to rob the bank with the “Genius brain” that could unlock the safe to take all the Lindens in there, annnnnnnddddd *Plot Twist* they are trying to portray that they are not evil at all but rather acting as the Robin Hood who steals from the rich and “Give” it to the poor as we can see that the money is all scattered from the helicopter soon after they take flight but if it was the money they were after, scattering the money will be the last thing they do.

I really admire that Second Front is an adult group who are really childish(Just to clarify, being childish is a good thing, like child in their heart still survived) and they could make such wonderful performance in Second Life, when I was much younger, I was a gamer who did things which were really similar to the what Second Front were doing but on a much smaller scale, I remembered that I made my friends to wear a set of costumes in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) called MapleSea but in a private server, we dressed up as the Meso Ranger and went around helping(Disturbing) people.

It was fun to be “Someone else” other than the normal character we used in the game and doing something we normally wouldn’t do with the disguise on, this was exactly what Second Front had done in the Grand Theft Avatar.

I would like to quote Alise Iborg  when asked question about the rehearsal vs Improvisation in their work:

If it is better improvised we will probably do that. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

With prerecorded performances, we can fine tune and edit out things we don’t want the audience to see. But with improvised performances, the work takes on a life of its own fueled by the creative energy of our players which really shows through.
Also, many times, it’s the surprises and unintended actions that make the work really come alive!

Isn’t this exactly what we learnt in this module? “Also, many times, it’s the surprise and unintended actions that make the work really come alive!”. Alise Iborg is more likely to have an improvised performance than a prerecorded one (its kind of paradoxical as their work was prerecorded and edited, but the content in it seemed really organic and improvised) and this is the spirit of having a performance(live or not) and if we embrace and accept the possibility that things will not go as planned or even planned to have the unplanned happenings, it would make organic pieces which unique and flavorful due to the shift against logical interpretations.

Afterall, Second Front is having fun making these artwork which some were funny, some were totally illogical, but the main thing which we all can learn is to have fun in the process is more important than having the perfect end result, I am sure Second Front laughed out loud when they were executing their pieces while they were like “FLYYY!! MAKE MORE OF THEM FLYYY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!”

 

 

 

 

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.

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.

 

Robotics – Biologically Inspired Robots: Research part 1

What is Biological Inspired robots? First lets break the words into pieces.
Biology – The natural science of studying Life and Living Organism.
Robots – A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.
we could see that the Robotic studies has a lot to learn from the Biological side as most of the nature elements are refined through the years and it should be one of the most efficient way of doing things.

There are 2 methods from nature where robotic could potentially learn from which are

  • Imitating mechanisms found in nature (velcro)
  • Studying organizational principles from the social behavior of organisms(Swarming)

Imitating mechanisms found in nature

Bionics/Bio-mimicry(biomimetics)

In robotics, bionics and biomimetics are used to apply the way animals move to the design of robots. Bionic Kangaroo  by Festo was based on the movements and physiology of kangaroos and one of the most well known Bio-mimicry of a bird was by Flying Machine by Leonardo Da VinciImage result for leonardo flying machine

There are many different variation of the bionics which replaces missing human limbs and they try to make it as close as the real ones, by producing a joint at where a joint should be, and although it might take awhile to get used to it, the technology is getting better over time and we are starting to go past the “Replacement of missing limbs” to “Enhancing human parts” since some of the Bionics worked better than our current limbs. *360 rotation of all joint? count me in.

This really inspired my projects in the turtle idea the spot is also an quad-pedal robot and I really love how it moves, maybe I could incorporate the idea of it into the turtle.

Notice how it move 1 foot at a time when turning and how it walks.

 

Studying organizational principles from the social behaviour of organisms

From the behaviors of ants, one ant may not be much and does not do much, with simple rules given to each type of ants, a society of ants will be able to do so much more and is really efficient. Hence on the idea of collective artificial intelligence in swarming in ants, fishes or birds, we could see the potential by using swarming in robotics by using local rules and global behaviors could allow us to scale the robotic ability into a scale unimaginable to us. 10 swarming robots could work, but 10 thousands swarming can do so much more, each individual robots just have to know where its immediate neighbors are.

The studying of insects like ants could really benefit the field of science and robotics.

This remind me of something that is in Big Heroes 6

Inspiration from this?
ANTS.
DEFINITELY ANTS.

I’ll end this part of research here and if I have anything more to add, I will add them in another part afterwards.

 

 

 

Interactive Devices – Device of the week 3: Electric Paint Lamp Kit

Conductive paint had been here for some time and the application for seemed to be really a next level to interactive devices. This is an example of the usage of a conductive paint, Electric Paint Lamp Kit.

The Conductive Paint Lamp Kit is a simple product which springs from the novelty of Conductive Paint and what made it so special is that it is the most basic element of any circuits- forming connections between parts. With conductive paint, we could form electric circuits on any paintable surface which means the possibilities are only restricted by the surface and our imagination, In the Lamp Kit, it uses only simple Light up board, some printed paper and Conductive Paint in different combination to form 3 different variation of lamp, if we were to use other modules of sensors or output, I am sure that it would be really fun to play with these.

Like for example, if we were to use projections on top of the conductive paint on a wall, it would be like so.

This is definitely an interesting project to be done and would be possible for us to complete with our current knowledge after some explorations.

Another project which latches on the idea on a set of more advanced conductive paint is this, the Electroluminescent (EL) Device.

The Electroluminescent Strips could be created by using a few layers of different paints.

and how to create that exactly could be found here:

In Conclusion

The element of interaction within the Lamp kit not only acts like a Lamp, it is also a DIY kit which the user would participate in making it into a final product which gives the user a sense of involvement and increase their liking on the product as it was made by them. Maybe I could incorporate this idea of involvement into my final project where the users could create something that runs in the system which I created.

Also, Conductive Paint seemed really interesting to play with it and the potential of it is endless, we should be able to see better Conductive Paint and Conductive Paint Projects in the market really soon and I probably will purchase one to play with and maybe make it into a project or something.

 

Interactive Devices – HUMAN+ Reflection and critics.

Through the exhibition, it kept coming to me that human was always seeking to be a better version of ourselves and it’s only recent in human history that we are able to breakthrough some technological barriers which finally make some progress in augmenting human’s physical and biological to make improvements. Since I personally think that morality is just a concept which is generally accepted by the culture, there should be no right and wrong in the idea of augmenting human, even on genetically modifying a baby since culture will change depending on time and location, genetically modification might be the norm in 20 years time.

The work that I am most interested in was the Tardigotchi.

Tardigotchi is a work done by SWAMP collaboration with Tiago Rorke.

The basic idea of Tardigotchi is to have two pet, one tardigrade and an digital avatar of the tardigrade. A tardigrade is an eight legged water animal which could live in the harshest environment on earth and even outerspace, I remember watching a documentary years ago about astronaut sending tardigrate into the space to test if they can survive the vacuum and radiation. Not only the tardigrate survived, they lived happily and reproduced in space and this was the reason that I really love this project and is sure that there is a real tardigrate inside of the sphere.

Another reason that I really love this work as I had thought about doing a project last year for Interactive 2 which reflect on my childhood where we keep tamagotchi as pet and I wanted to recreate a project similar to tamagotchi but on a bigger scale, like a projection at ADM lounge and we will have an ADM pet. So this project resonate with me a lot personally, just by seeing this project lying in Human+ exhibition, I knew i will write about this instantly.

This is the Tardigotchi in Dublin Human+ exhibition and it seems so much nicer then the rapid prototyped model here in Singapore.

Hyperessay #1: Concepts in Social Broadcasting

Before the start of this module, the idea of social broadcasting and Live streaming was really intimidating to me and I would probably never do it unless there is reasons that I must, and this module was the reason. After 6 occasion of going on live and broadcasting, it is still intimidating for me to do so, maybe this was the beauty of it, the realness aspect to the Live streaming which made it frightening and interesting.

In the first lesson, we had Real Time Aggregation 

15 min of randomness in adm

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Thursday, 17 August 2017

which was also my first facebook live ever. And I was ferociously dropkicked out of the comfort zone to produce my first Live video ever, but through it, I learnt how to use the Facebook Live function properly and upon inspecting my piece while writing the OSS post about it,I notice a few pointers which could be used in the future – to talk morein the video and also the function of switching the phone’s front and back camera, both of it greatly influenced the way the second Facebook Live assignment – Alter Ego : I Am Bonnie whereby Bonnie was born. This was my favorite piece I produced due to the reaction of the audience, Bonnie was well loved(hated) by many!

I am Bonnie, a Pokemon trainer from Japan. I want to be the very best like no one ever was, to catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause. This is a Alter Ego project for assignment 2, sorry but I hope you don't get cancer from watching/hearing this.

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Wednesday, 23 August 2017

Lets Start by going through our Critiques

Learning from the past to create the future was always something which I believed in, we did the Videofreex, Hole in Space, BOLD3RRR and world longest collaborative sentence critiques. Out of these, the Videofreex and Bold3RRR had influence immensely in my approached of live broadcasting. Videofreex taught me that for us to create something that is really unique and legendary, we have to put ourselves in a situation where we are outside of the comfort zone, taking risk and breaking rules sometime would result in peculiar outcomes.

I used to think that “Broadcasting” was a concept that I’ll film anything I wanted and put it on broadcast where many audience could view it at the same time, this changed after I saw “Here comes the Videofreex” – in the video, they transit from a “group that film and broadcast however they want” in their early work to the work after they shifted to lanesville where they had their local community to participated in their broadcast, this changed from “I film and you watch” way of broadcast to “Lets create a community and be in this together and we will all enjoy the process” concept. This is where the “Social” in Social Broadcasting” comes in.

And then, comes BOLD3RRR which contradicted everything I just said.

BOLD3RRR is a piece that the artist do whatever what he wants, producing an artwork which hardly make any sense if you watched it once, but is that a good piece?
Definitely!
The fact that I am more captivated by BOLD3RRR than any other Critics we had done in this course… But why?

Because Logic doesn’t explain this piece, there is no visible theory about BOLD3RRR, Jon Cates is a unique artist that made all his work heterodoxically, he not conformed into the mainstreams and social restriction, he produces them as he sees fit. This was what made his work amusing to return to, every time I re-watched BOLD3RRR, I gained something new from it as if watching it for the first time.

Videofreex VS BOLD3RRR in the battlefield of social broadcasting

So, there is two extremes in social broadcasting – something that have the audience to participate in the broadcasting as the SOCIAL Broadcasting, and something that the artist do however he wants and the audience will have mixed emotion as the SOCIAL Broadcasting. Any one of which is better than the other? I don’t know, it is only the matter of preferences. For me, one made sense but I only watched once and that’s it(BORING). another was a total nuts but I watched more than 30 times and still cant fully get it(AMUSING).

What about Hole in Space and world longest collaborative sentence ?

Hole in Space and world longest collaborative sentence are two piece which were really similar. The main artwork was the audience’s intercommunication and what the artist did was to create a platform for the audience to interact with each other. Is that Social broadcasting? Sure it is~ the social(many people) aspect is there, the broadcasting(many viewer on the same time at different place) aspect is there be it the communication medium was through video or text, their essence were the same.

Back to the work I did.

OBS livestream was an evolution for me after BOLD3RRR enlightened me to use pre-recorded clips into my livestream to give it an unique look that many events were happening on the screen at the same time and the audio from the pre-recorded clip will cut into my current live speech. This will slightly disorientate the viewer(I hope) and having them to listen closely if they were watching just like how I did with BOLD3RRR. I also lived up to what I said after the Real Time Aggregation, where I will talk more in the future and getting out of the comfort zone.

Lastly was the Cross Stream -Intoxicated along with the Cross Stream Technical Test.

In this Cross Stream, we had the abstract approach and it will be alright if the user does not understand this piece as we do not want to be conformed into the mainstream idea of broadcasting and wanted to try exploring what we wouldn’t otherwise explore. Our objective was to disorient the viewers by progressing the level of drunkenness through sound, visual and camera movements, all of these were inspired by BOLD3RRR where he used the glitches paired with pre-recorded audios and visual as part of his live stream just like what we did in our OBS stream.

 

In Conclusion

I think that there isn’t one best Social Broadcasting solution that could fit it all as Social Broadcasting come in all platforms and mediums, it is impossible for us to pinpoint what is the purpose or the appearance of Social Broadcasting, it could be in video format, text, audio and I am sure it will soon be possible to broadcast with all the senses(like touch or smell) in the near future . The only common parallels which I could draw from all the critics and my works is that – Social Broadcasting is to communicate and there is no best method for communication. We could simply(arguably) say that, shouting in the public is a form of social broadcasting.

 

Through this half of the semester, this GIF speaks a million words.

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”

-Brian Tracy

 

Critics:
Videofreex,
Hole in Space,
BOLD3RRR,
world longest collaborative sentence

Work:
Real Time Aggregation,
Alter Ego : I Am Bonnie ,
Adobe Connect,
OBS livestream,
Cross Stream

Robotics – Final Project Ideas Generations & Researches 1

For the final project for robotics, I decided that I want to do a solo project as to explore and learn more about the robotic aspect.

Categories that I am interested in:

Animatronics:

The use of Robotic Device to emulate human or animals, or to bring lifelike characteristic  to inanimate object-

It integrates:
Anatomy
Robots
Mechatronics
Puppetry (research to be done: Karakuri Puppets)

Usually powered by:
Pneumatics
Hydralics
Electrical
Mechanical

And controlled by:
Computer
Human (teleoperation like remote)

And further research must be done on:
Structure – Frame/Skeleton(Material, Skin)
Components – Types of motors and usage

Automaton

They are self-operating machine or mechanism that automatically follow a predetermined sequences of operations, for me, they are more like the 3D – Dumb, Dull and Dangerous of robotics that does job that would reduce manpower.

The main aspect I think of Automaton is the ability of repeat-ability as they are supposed to do the same sequence over and over again so the zeroing of every cycle is of an importance here.

Areas to explore here:
3D
Healthcare
Unmanned Vehicles
Architecture
Medical
Entertainments

Stepper motor VS Servo Motor

Stepper Motor:
– Easier to control (1Pulse = 1 step)
– Higher Torque at low speed
– Relatively cheaper
– Accelerate too fast will result in skil step
– Higher vibration

Servo Motor:
– Generally High speed and High torque for given size
– Ability to maintain torque at high speed
– More efficient
– Does not vibrate much in comparison to Stepper Motor
– Generally more expensive
– Only limited types of servos

Overall:
Stepper motor is good for low acceleration and high torque applications  and Servo motor is good for higher speed and higher torque applications.

My thoughts:
I could use 2 smaller servo to move a lever which is not capable by using only 1 servo instead of using a bigger servo (like 2x SG90D at 6V vs 1x HS322HD at 5V, but theres a limit to this)

I am more inclined to Animatronics as it seems much more interesting for me, after some research about Animatronics, Hexapods and Octopods are really common among the field of robotics due to the stability (6/2 = 3, and 3 feet on the ground will be stable) but then I am really interested in Quadruped which has 4 feet and an quadruped animal which I really like was the turtle/tortoise as they are interesting, generally does not move too fast and naturally have a shell, which seems logical to use a turtle as a base as their nature suits what I am looking for and it will be easier to hide all the components. So for now, I really want to give a Robotic Turtle some thoughts.