Male: Looking at this robot, you may think that it is too complex and too hard to build one yourself, but actually it is not. In fact, in the next few minutes, you are going to see just how easy it can be to build your own web-enabled Autonomous telepresence robot and you can control with anywhere in the world.
Let us take a look at some of the basic components. Now, in my case, pretty much everything came from my best collection of crap and hopefully you will have some of the same thing at home, but if not you will able to scram together similar items to complete your own Sparky robot.
Here we have the vex robot kit which is actually a lot like an erector set, although it also comes with matching motors, gears, and wheels, and all the things like that, so it all communicates together very efficiently. The brain and nervous system, basically, it is the Mac Mini, a monitor, a web cam, the MAKE control board, and some custom software which we will get to in a minute.
Power, 12 v double battery, an inverter to turn into AC. The drive train, old sparky used the 24 v motorized wheelchair, but now it is the vex servo motors. There are little under power for this job but they just barely make it work.
To control the motors, we are using this MAKE this brand controller board and this thing is so sweet, it has so many digital inputs and outputs that it could be controlling thousands of different functions. But, we are using it for is to control two servo motors.
The chances of you having all these same stuff, it is pretty slim, but that is kind of the point that after you see what I can do with this, you will be able to dig up your own stuff and build your own sparky robot with the things you have. The real benefit of working with Vex is that it allows you to prototype your designs very quickly and inexpensive, but this way I can keep using the same basic chassis over and over again until I get the robot just how I want it.
In the past, sparky has used a number of different monitors, I finally settled in this old computer monitor and I really like this clip design to hold in place. We have managed to use a lot less steel but it is still structural because of the use of the bungee cord. If you are using the MAKE controller board, you should probably visit the makingthings.com website to make sure that you have all the software you need to operate.
If you are using Arduino or some other control board, then follow the instructions that they provide. It is important to keep in mind that pretty much everyone of these steps will be different for you because you will be using different components, maybe a different computer or different hardware, but that is okay. Building something like this is really more about trial and error an everything.
Now that we have everything assembled, it is basically a computer on wheels. Once we installed the special Skype software and plugged in then it will be a true web-enabled robot. What is great about Skype is that it allows you to run your own application in conjunction the Skype, so we have actually set it up, so that when we were running our own special modified skype plan, we have all the controls necessary to drive a robot as well as video chat all at one time.
John: Hello! I am John Watson, the first gear grad student at Stanford University and I have the pleasure of writing the software that makes sparky communicate these days.
Male: So, what exactly are we doing here? How we are using Skype to drive sparky?
John: Well, the next thing about Skype is that it has plug and interphase; it is a kind of open source way for us to right plug in. So, with the test messages in the skype, I can actually send text messages in my plug-in, it is matched to a key, so if you go and hit the board, and match goes over and text message and then you could see the server or action.
Male: So, everything that they need will be available on the gummystyle website?
John: I will provide both software and source code to that software.
Male: A savvy coder can take a software we are giving them and add more functionality to it, to do almost anything they want. They can make the robot do anything.
John: That is right, software we provide allows you an air of mechanism for translating any text message and in another plug in your Skype robot. See the text message versus it and it becomes into a server control.
Male: Well, that is about time we have for to the Sparky overview, but for detailed instructions as well as software to download, visit us at gummystyle.com, you can also see a bunch of other projects that you can do at home as well, thanks for watching, we will see you next time.
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