Google Chrome Speech-to-Text

I created a behaviour for Nao that used the same speech-to-text services found in Android devices and google chrome to translate spoken words in to text. It works better than the standard speech recognition engine and can be used for many more things. I’m eager to see what other Nao developers do with it.

See a quick demo of the speech recognition:

Nao developers can find the code here.

For those who want to try it on their (Linux) computers, here you have a command that will record 5s of sound, encode it in Flac format and send it to google. Then it will right Google’s response in a txt file.

arecord -f cd -t wav -d 5 -r 16000 | flac – -f –best –sample-rate 16000 -o out.flac; wget –post-file out.flac –header=”Content-Type: audio/x-flac; rate=16000″ -O speech.txt http://www.google.com/speech-api/v1/recognize?lang=en

I have to thank Mike Pultz to be the inspiration for this.

Nao1337 at MyRobots.com

We finally released it on the December the 20th and so far it has been a huge success in popularity! see the press coverage here. MyRobots.com  is a social network for robots where they can interact and collaborate.

MyRobots.com aims to connect all robots and intelligent devices to the Internet. In doing so we augment their capabilities enabling them to be remotely monitored and controlled. We strive to make cloud robotics a reality accessible to everyone and everything.

You can think of MyRobots as a social network for robots and smart objects. In other words, the Facebook for robots. In the same way humans benefit from socializing, collaborating and sharing, robots can benefit from those interactions too by sharing their sensor information giving insight on their perspective of their current state.

- MyRobots.com – About

All robot and smart devices can be supported by the site since it uses an open API for communication. If you have a Nao, you can use this behaviour in order to get it connected: NaoMonitor You can find more information on how to get your Nao connected here.

Nao 1337 is already connected so you can visit him at MyRobots.com and see how his sensors are doing.

If you are still wondering what is a social network for robots, see the video by Ericson that illustrates our vision pretty well (except for the end maybe).

Nao 1337 played Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock (the geek version of Rock Paper Scissors) against children and adults at Maker Faire NY 2011. The 1337 robot was able to play with the public with minimal intervention from operators and as shown in the video below, everybody loved him.

The idea is to have Nao memorize all the matches and come up with a way of predicting the human moves much like the New Your Times Version of the game.

See the pictures below in order to see more robotic awesomeness from the World Maker Faire 2011 which was held in Queens, NY.

This teaches humanity a lesson: never leave your robots alone, they will start conspiring.

Nao 1337 and Carlitos Downtown

We went downtown Montreal the other day with Nao 1337 and shot some pictures, this was mainly an exercise in vanity. See the resulting photo gallery below.

Nao 1337 getting ready for the red carpet

See the video below explaining the festival’s raison d’être:

Below you can see our submission to the festival: Nao 1337 Audition. 1337 impersonates several popular Hollywood robots in the hope of getting a role in a movie. How many can you recognize? Leave a comment below with your answers.

Screening

The festival started with a screening of all the selected robot films (53). It lasted around five hours and was punctuated by a break and some live performances by Jilted, and the excellent Robot Cowboy. Nao 1337 watched the screenings seated on a chair like the humans, but has some issued with the chair clogging its head ventilation and screamed (max volume) “head processor hot” at one point during an action scene of the very excellent Ping film.

See Nao 1337 watch the screening of its own movie below.

Red Carpet

After a fancy dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, we headed back to the 3LD for the Red Carpet Ceremony. The red carpet was already deployed so 1337 and I got ready to walk it.

I had programmed 1337 to hold hands and walk alongside me on the red carpet. I also included the ability to take breaks and show-off while standing on the carpet.

Nao 1337 and Carlitos about to walk the red carpet

Extra points for those who can recognize the FOTC member in the background of the picture above.

As shown in the video below, walking the red carpet was lots of fun and although it was fairly rough terrain for Nao (the carpet had some minor bumps that go unnoticed to humans).  1337 could traverse it without too much difficulty. The fall manager was enabled as well in order to soften the falls caused by the robot stumbling.

Although it is not shown on the video, 1337 can also tun and go backwards according to how its hand is pulled just like a human would do.

Unfortunately, 1337 did not get the Best Robot Actor Botsker (robot Oscar) but we met a bunch of new interesting people and it was lots of fun.

There were also performances by Double Rainbow, Reggie Watts and Josh Ventura during the ceremony. Those guys absolutely rock!

See more pictures or videos of Nao 1337 at the film festival here:

• New Scientist
• Robot Dreams
• Galo
• DSP Studios
• Technology Reviews
• Servo Magazine
• RobotShop Blog

And even more pictures!

Nao 1337 Film

The short video will premier at the festival, on July 17th, and I’ll make it available on my Youtbe channel at the same time (if there is a WiFi connection available) or a bit later that day.  So stay tuned and see 1337 awesome performance.

1337 will be also present and will walk the red carpet hopefully along some other robofriends.

The DIY Jamming Gripper

My main goal was to create a universal gripper that could be made from off-the shelves parts in a simple way with minimum customization.

Materials

• A shower head (that you will need to modify slightly)
• Some 1/4″ silicon tubing
• Some cottons balls
• A balloon
• A DC pump
• A DC wall adaptor
• A switch
• Some coffee
• A coupling
• A funnel to fill the balloon with coffee

DIY Jamming Gripper Materials

Putting it together

I think I succeeded my goal as you will see below: the gripper is quite easy to assemble and only required very minor modification of the shower head in order to fit the balloon in.

The steps for putting the gripper together are outlined in the video below.

As shown in the video below the proper works pretty well. unfortunately, I did not film it but it can also hold a glass filled with water as the original.

See the picture gallery below for more details about the building steps and the final result.

As explained in the video below, I also use clear Duck tape to protect Nao’s surfaces. This tape is inexpensive, does not leave any residue and is very strong.

Also, as a follow-up of the video, in order to better protect Nao from the friction in the pelvic region, I use D-profile self-adhesive ribber tape (the kind you normally use in door frames to prevent air from coming in). Since it is white and mate like Nao it goes very well and makes for a nice belt.

Nao with rubber belt

I’ll be publishing my behaviours (the code running in the Nao) for everybody to download once I figure a nice and elegant way to do it.

In the video above, Nao 1337 dances one of my favourites tangos: Por Una Cabeza by Carlos Gardel.

It was to be expected that since I come from Argentina, my Nao would end up dancing tango and probably drinking mate in the near future.

Nao 1337 Waves

I named him Nao 1337 but I am open to suggestions. You can leave a comment below if you think of a better name. You can see a quick presentation of this awesome humanoid robot below.

I’ll be posting further developments, images and pictures as I progress. I am planning on making several applications in order to achieve my ultimate goal of having Nao play chess.

Nao 1337 Stands Up

The Bandana

As you can see in the pictures and videos, Nao1337 wears a red bandana. This is manly because he is bad-ass and utterly cool.

Nao 1337 Sitting

See the video below for a sneak peek of the robot. This video shows you what you would get if you were to join Aldebaran Developer program.

Stay posted for more Nao action. You can also visit my YouTube channel in order to see my latest Nao videos.

Nao's Packing Picture

I joined Aldebaran’s developer program and now my Nao is coming (much faster than I expected). They even sent me a picture of the box prior to shipping it.

This is an amazing experience and you can be sure I’ll be sharing all of it in here.

Stay tuned for more Nao news!

iRobot and the University of Chicago released a video of their universal robotic gripper. It is basically a gripper that can conform to the shape of seemingly every object. The video below illustrates its capabilities.

The gripper uses the properties of granular materials to become rigid or fluid by applying pressure constraints. Basically, the flexible blue sphere seen in the video is filled with a granular material (ground coffee) and can become solid when a vacuum is applied.

Since this is a rather simple principle, I thought I could quickly do one for myself.

Materials

• A party balloon (silver in my case)
• A piece of plastic tubing (I used a hose fitting I had lying around)
• A piece of cloth
• Ground coffee (I use some very old coffee I found in my freezer)
• A rubber band.
• Functional lungs (unfortunately, my vacuum pump is dead)

How to do it

1. Fill the balloon with coffee (you might need to put it in a  vacuum chamber in order to be able to expand the balloon and thus stuff more coffee in it).
2. Cover one end of the plastic tubing with the piece of cloth and hold it together with the rubber band. This will be used an air-permeable filter that will keep the coffee inside the balloon and allow air to circulate.
3. Insert the plastic tube in the balloon (so the filter is inside the balloon).

Now, you can connect the contraption to a vacuum pump in order to create a vacuum. you can also use your mouth and lungs in order to suck the air out. I had to resort to the latter method since my vacuum pump is broken :’(.  I am trying to source a cheap vacuum pump in order to improve the project and make it into a real robotic gripper. Any suggestions are welcome!

The Result

Bellow, you can see my gripper gripping many objects and even pouring water as the original one does. You can also see me operate the gripper by sucking the air out of the balloon.

The Future

As soon as I secure a nice vacuum pump, I will make a second version of the gripper using better materials. Again, any suggestions regarding the pump are welcome.

UPDATE: I found a pump thank to teh Youtube Comments! See the 2.0 version of the gripper.

This script requires my Pololu library and includes some codes from here in order to control the camera. Besides the basic requirements of lib_pololu,  the script also requires gPhoto. If you are running Linux, you most likely  already have it but in case you do not, you can install it through your favourite package manager or by using the console (e.g. for Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt-get install gphoto

If you are using some other OS, you can download gPhoto from here.

The Code

Again, many thanks to RobotShop who provided the hardware that made this project possible.

Read the follow up posts: Panoramaker, where I expose the software, and Automatic Panoramas in Montreal, where the final result can be seen.

I have finally completed my second project sponsored by RobotShop. I apologize for the immense delay, I really missed my promise of rolling out a new project every two weeks. Let’s just say that I had a lot going on lately and I could barely keep up with my obligations, let alone blogging or building new projects.

Place Ville-Marie Panorama

This time, I built a panoramic camera. My main objective was to have a platform that can be used with pretty much any camera and that can produce panoramas with a minimum of work. If there is enough interest from the public and if this prototype is well received by the DIY community, I’m planning to produce (and hopefully sell) kits that would include all the parts to build this device.

Materials

• Hitec HS-785HB Winch Servo Motor
• ServoCity SPT200 Direct Drive Pan & Tilt System
• Pololu Micro Serial 8 Servo Controller
• Hitec HS-425BB Servo Motor
• A digital camera
• Small plastic container
• Battery holders
• (Rechargeable) Batteries
• A piece of aluminum (I used an old heat sink)
• A long nut (of the same size as a tripod screw)
• A screw (that fits into the tripod attachment on the camera)
• A tripod
• Cable ties
• A small piece of neoprene (or any other mushy substance)
• A USB to Serial cable
• Some female headers and wires

Putting It Together

Panoramic Camera Mount

The first step was to put together the ServoCity Pan and Tilt system. This took away much of the building work since it is really simple to put together in no time at all. Nevertheless, I applied some modifications to it: I discarded the bottom plate that should be attached to the panning servo (since I am using a larger winch servo that would not fit otherwise), and I drilled a hole on the top plate in order to be able to fasten the camera to the rig. Note that I also included a little piece of neoprene that was lying around in order to prevent the bottom of my camera from getting scratched.

The mounting hole for the camera must be placed so that the lens’ pupil is at the centre of rotation. This way, the horizontal rotation axis will be close to the no-parallax-error point  (or whatever it is called) of the camera and will minimize the parallax errors.

Then, I used an old heat sink as the main structure since it is sturdy and basically free. I used the trusty Dremel to adapt it and cut the proper holes and slots in order to mount all the remaining pieces. The pieces to be mounted on the aluminum plate are the battery holders, the Pololu servo controller, and the winch servo motor. (or whatever it is called

I encapsulated the Pololu servo controller in a small plastic container I got from for free while on a trip with my girlfriend to the beauty/ soap/cream shop. I also used two 2-AA battery holders in order to provide power for the servo motors. I used 29000 mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries that gave me several hours of autonomy. In order to connect the battery holders to the controller, I soldered a two-position female header and insulated the leads with heat-shrink tubing.

I used almost exclusively cable ties to tie everything on the aluminum plate except for the winch servo motor that I screwed in and the long nut that was also screwed in place (after being drilled sideways).  I also had to drill the bottom aluminum face in order to allow for the tripod screw to be inserted into the nut.

Operating it

Panoramic camera in action

This first prototype requires a laptop to be operated, which can be a little annoying.  I plan to use my EeePC in the immediate future and an embedded computer for an eventual commercial kit. It basically works as follows:

1. The camera is set on the panoramic mount, which is fastened to the tripod.
2. The servo controller and the camera are connected to the computer trough their respective USB cables.
3. The controlling program is run.
4. The user waits in awe while the camera takes pictures by itself.

In order to control the hardware, I use a python script that uses my Pololu library and gPhoto in order to operate the servos and the camera respectively. I chose gPhoto since it supports a very wide range of cameras and it is very easy to use.

For now, taking a full 360 panorama takes about 15 minutes. This is a very long time and is mostly due to the fact that my script was hastily put together without care about the performance and in very little time. I will, very soon, post a cleaner version of the code, as well as all the panoramas I took properly processes and in full format, similarly to what I did with my San Francisco panoramas.

Acknowledgements

RobotShop.com

I would like to thank the great people at RobotShop for providing the Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller, the  ServoCity SPT200 Direct Drive Pan & Tilt System, and the Hitec HS-785HB Winch Servo Motor. This is the second (and hopefully not the last) project they sponsor here at Carlitos’ Contraptions. Without their help, I would have never been able to afford any of the materials (except for those that come straight from the garbage as usual).

They have also being very patient and understanding about my unexpected delay in rolling out this project.

Mysterious Safe Box

I found a little safe box in the garbage some time ago and I would really like to open it. The box features some dents and scratches that show some people tried to open it in the past but did not succeed. Also, when shaken, it produces some interesting noises that indicate it is not empty and may contain a valuable treasure some cool junk.

The Plan:

Of course, there are many ways of achieving this (e.g. cutting holes into its walls, removing the hinges, hiring a locksmith) but I do not want to break the safe, nor do I want to hire anyone to do it in my place. Inspired by so many movies, the first thing I tried was to listen to the (nonexistent) clicking of the dial as it turns: it did not work at all.

Very quickly, I decided that the appropriate way of doing it (given my set of skills) was to have a machine do it in my place. So, I decided to build a little manipulator that will test all possible combinations of the safe until it opens up.

Since this requires precise positioning, I thought a servo motor would be the best choice of actuator (and also because I have some other project ideas involving servos).

The Materials:

• Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller
• Hitec HS-425BB Servo Motor
• Male and female headers
• Power adaptor (4 to 6 VDC)
• Wire
• Heat shrink tubing
• USB to Serial cable
• 2 gears and a spindle (one four times larger than the other, I got mine from an old photocopier)
• A project box (in my case, an old computer power supply case)
• A bottle cap and an old heat sink
• Steel wire (e.g. form an old coat hanger)
• Magnets (the stronger the better)
• Various screws

Essential Tools

• Screwdrivers
• Rotary tool (Dremel)
• File

The How and the Why:

Electronic Parts

I chose the Pololu servo controller since it is easy to interface by either using a computer or a simple microcontroller. Also, I already own a USB-to-serial cable (that I normally use to program the Arduino) that I can use to send commands to the controller.

The choice of the servo motor was based in getting the maximum torque at a reasonable price.

In order to control the servo motor, I devised a simple python module as seen in my previous post.

Since, usually, servo motors have a motion range slightly greater than 180 deg, I decided to use gears to be able to produce a motion range large enough to operate the safe (at least two full turns).

Mechanical Parts

I used an old heat sink and cut it with the Dremel in order to produce a bracket for the servo and a mounting hole for the secondary (smallest) gear axle.

I attached the larger gear to the servo directly using the brackets and screws that came bundled with the motor. Also, in order to hold the shaft in place, I used e-style retaining rings and spacers (other dummy gears and shoulder washers) in order to match the grooves already present in the shaft. Of course, I got all these handy mechanical parts from an old photocopier I found in the garbage.

Dial coupling attached to the small gear

In order to couple the small gear to the safe dial, I used a bottle cap which fitted perfectly over it. The cap has some child proofing which provided a firm grip for the dial.

The Project Box

Once the assembly was done, I mounted it into an old power supply box. Although the box required some drilling and cutting, it was very easy to adapt. I would recommend using this type of boxes for other projects since they are sturdy and easy to machine.

Electronic Assembly

So to include the electronic parts into the box, I used a small plastic capsule (that must come from the time when my young brother liked those little toys they sell in a dispensing machine). In the capsule, I placed the Pololu servo controller, the USB to serial cable and the servo motor cable, and the power supply cable.

I needed to adapt the USB to serial cable in order to match the pin-out on the controller. For this, I used a male and a female header, and some wire. I connected the GND and the V+ pins to their respective counterparts, and the TX pin to the Serial-in pin.

In order to supply the appropriate power, I used an old cellphone charger and I replaced its original connector with a female header. As always, it is good practise to isolate the electrical connections with some heat-shrink tubing.

The (disappointing) outcome

Very gentle safe cracker

Once everything was done, I fixed the new little machine to the safe and got ready to get it trying codes. I used a coat hanger and some rare earth magnets in order to hold the cracker firmly in place.

To my great disappointment, I realized that the gears I used provoked a (much expected) torque reduction. This meant that the system is not strong enough for turning the dial to a set position reliably. No matter how much lubricant I used, the dial was too stiff for the little robot.

This represents a (temporary) victory for the safe, but the war is far from being over.

Epilogue

I decided to publish these results in spite of my failure since too often we read reports of success (notably in science) and often forget that we can learn from failures as well. Never do we read about scientits proving their original hypothesis wrong, but very often, documenting those mistakes could prevent others from doing the same.

Finally, for those wondering how I was planning to pull on the safe lids so it opens, it is remarkably simple: since the safe does not have any handle to latch it closed, I merely need to hang it from its handle and try the codes until it opens and the bottom part goes down.

The safe hanging unaware of its fate

Finally (this time for real), I cannot say too much about my next plans on attacking the safe, but be sure that they involve a stepper motor.

Acknowledgements:

RobotShop.com

I would like to thank the great people at RobotShop for providing the Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller and the Hitec HS-425BB Servo Motor. As I mentioned before, they will be sponsoring a set of projects here at Carlitos’ Contraptions in the foreseeable future.

They were also kind enough to quickly ship a replacement gear set when I ruined the original one on the servo motor by hand forcing it to turn (I know, I sound brilliant).

Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller

I started writing a library for controlling the Pololu motor controllers with a computer trough a serial port.

I’m writing this in Python so the code can be cross-platform but I would be very glad to have some feedback about running it on other OSs than Linux. Actually, any feedback would be very welcome.

As of now it can interface with the Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller that I got form RobotShop.  I am planning to use this code in my upcoming project RobotShop is sponsoring. I will supplement this library as I get newer hardware to work with.

I know there is already a python interface for it but I really wanted to have an object oriented way of managing motors (i.e. they can be instantiated and controlled more easily).

You can download the library here: lib_pololu.py (you will need to change the extension of the file to .py instead of txt).

In order to properly use this library you will require:

1. Python
2. Pyserial

If you use a civilized OS you may be able to get all this by typing this in a command prompt:

sudo apt-get install idle python-serial

Here is a sample script that will use the library in order to control a servo: servo_example.py (you will need to change the extension of the file to .py instead of txt).

Note for Redmond OS (aka Window$) users: you will need the Win32 Python extension for pyserial to work.