Saturday, June 30, 2018

Confession

A Saturday night confession from your host... At this price, $29.99,  I cracked and ordered one - it may be a dud - we will see - you can too by clicking here.  The original ad was on Facebook. Full report to follow. At the very least - it will look good sitting on a shelf. 
Here is the info from Orfila's website (with most of the original typos - "Robotic" instead of "robot" for example).








Intelligent Humanoid Robotic

Regular price Sale price$29.99


About the product:
  • Robotic stands 16" inches tall and features 16 advanced digital servos that enable your robot to perform incredible movements at Lightning speed; Speaker:3W mono speaker.
  • Humanoid Design: Equipped with a movable helmet, flexible arm and LED light at the eyes. Move in all directions, Turn Right, Turn Left, Forward & Backward. Walking mode and sliding mode.
  • Vox Function: After turn on the robot, clap for it, and it Can control its flexible arm easily by Left Hand Up/Hand Down, Right Hand Up/Hand Down. Also can shoot in a fixed direction and randomly fight, sing, dance and etc.
  • QUALITY ASSURANCE: Matte ABS plastic is used for Intelligent Humanoid Robotic's body, which is environmentally friendly and smooth to the touch. This material provides a superior drop resistance so you won't need to worry if it accidentally falls to the ground.
  • It is so much more than a tech toy: his personality, life-like movements, and energy make him feel like the newest member of the family.
Full of fun, attitude, and personality.
With its humanoid design, the Intelligent Humanoid Robotic will feel like a companion. It has 16 movable joints throughout its body. It can move, dance and fight among countless other skills. These abilities are performed with servos that have a timing accuracy within 0.01s. They support 360° rotation and can move with accuracy to 1° thereby, achieving more actions and functional scenarios.
  
Robotic Engine - Servo
Our servo is engineered with a built-in MCU, self-controlled, and sensory feedback system. This improves the flow of movement to be more precise. Our robotic engine has the most advanced technology in the robotics industry.
Workout Together
Intelligent Humanoid Robotic is more than a companion, it's also a workout buddy. It can do yoga moves with you, and can also do work out exercises like push-ups and headstands. Turn it into a soccer player and kung fu master.
 
Features
  • 3D visualization (PC) and action editing software
  • Exceptionally high power core and digital servos that enable precision movements with absolute control.
  • 16 movable joints/servos placed all over the body making it highly flexible with incredibly human-like movements.
  • Short charging time for battery, long run after each charge.
  • Sensors fixed in arms and legs in order to prevent jamming while in motion.
SPECIFICATIONS
  • Dimension: H:398mm W:208mm D:122mm
  • Degrees of freedom: 16 degrees of freedom
  • Material: Aluminum alloy structure, ABS housing
  • Speaker: 3W Mono
  • Processor: STM32-F103RDT6
  • External storage: Standard 128M, maximum support up to 32G
  • Control mode: Dual-mode Bluetooth 3.0/4.0 BLE+EDR
  • Battery: 7.4v 2200m Lipoly
  • Playtime: ≥ 60min/time
  • Compatible systems: Windows/iOS/Android
  • Software programming: Achieving the analog simulation based on 3D visual PC software

How Curious!


Spacecraft 3D

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Robotics Engineer Barbie

C|Net has the story here. Today's Barbie is all about science. Learn how she evolved career-wise over the years and became a STEM champion with her latest role as a robotics engineer.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

A New Tiny Tutorial!

From the Parallax Inc. - Robots for Education  Facebook page..."New addition to Tiny Tutorials for Tuesday: Take your BlocklyProp code to C and Simple IDE. BlocklyProp is a great tool for learning to code and for moving on to C programming when you're ready. Whit shows us how it's done."



Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Robothon 2018 T Shirt Design - UPDATED

The Robothon 2018 T-Shirt design has just been announced. The design shown below is by my friend Carol Lynn Hazlett. Approval by SRS's membership (Seattle Robotics Society) is pending, but my fingers are crossed! I want one of these!


UPDATE: It is official and ordered with improved artwork!


ANOTHER UPDATE: Carol posts, "So it turns out Robby the Robot is not in the public domain so I had to change the Robothon t-shirt design. I hired my nephew Brent Rosenburgh who now has his own design company called Rosenburgh Digital Designs and here is the new shirt. And way the heck better than what I came up with!" 

I replied, "Should have told them that was Bobby the Robot - Robby's twin brother. Whatever the design - I will wear it proudly."

Here is a photo of the latest version...




Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Parallax "m-Arlo" Robot Video Tour



Update & Note: I mention the weight of m-Arlo in the video and how heavy it feels for its size. I put in on the scales and it weighs 21.3 pounds - pretty heavy compared to an S3 or ActivityBot!

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

m-Arlo with Sony IR Remote


Arlo - Better Drive Arlo with Sony IR Remote running on the m-Arlo (mid-sized Arlo) and Propeller Activity Board WX. Note: This is based on Remote - S3 with Sony Remote v.2.0 - http://blockly.parallax.com/blockly/my/projects.jsp#8534
Drives Arlo or m-Arlo with a Sony Remote. The robot moves only while button is pressed and stops when button is released.

1 - Turn Forward Left, 2 - Forward Straight, 3 - Turn Forward Right, 4 - Rotate CCW, 5 - Blink LEDs, 6 - Rotate CW, 7 - Turn Backward Left, 8 - Backward Straight,  9 - Turn Backward Right, 0 - Play Beep!


TEAMWORK and a little yellow cap!

Since m-Arlo (mid-sized Arlo) was completed on Memorial Day - I've been testing all sorts of code (modifying geometry for odometry) and making sure all is in good working order.

One consistent failure/problem/BUG from day one is that all the code I had for use with the Sony IR Remote - Failed in BlocklyProp, failed in C. All the code worked with the USB programming cable attached, but as soon as I disconnected it failed (when the power switch on the Activity Board WX was in position 2. I tried everything I could think of to solve this problem.

Got Parallax (Matt Matz and Ken Gracey) involved yesterday - today the issue was solved. Andy Lindsay and David Carrier suggested as Matt wrote, "One new guess (Andy and David's suggestion) is to place a 0.1uF cap (the little yellow guy in many of our kits) across the power leads of the IR receiver. Miguel is going to try to duplicate the issue, but the reason for the cap is that motors are noisy, and the PWM driving them might be placing noise on the power lines - messing with the IR receiver." 



The little yellow cap - capacitor in place!

GENIUS! - Everything works perfectly now! I don't know if I ever would have pieced this together (just would not have connected motor noise/PWM with the problem).

Sometimes in robotics - "It takes a village... especially if there are some really smart people living in the village." - (R) Trademark and copyright by Robotics Under the Stole ;-)
Thanks, TEAM Parallax!







Monday, June 4, 2018

Tiny Tutorials from Parallax

What a great way to learn! Thanks to Parallax, Inc., and Ken Gracey! I look forward to more of these.


Saturday, June 2, 2018

m-Arlo Testing

UPDATE - my Parallax m-Arlo (mid-sized Arlo) Roaming with Ping))) Obstacle Detection programmed using BlocklyProp code - Pings))) at Front - pin 14, Left - 45 degrees (approx) - pin 16, Right - 45 degrees (approx)  - pin 17, and Rear - pin 15, using Propeller Activity Board WX (with IR detector on pin 10 - not used), and piezo speaker on pin 4. This code works well and the bot finds its way out even stubborn situations! Getting all the bugs worked out. - http://blockly.parallax.com/blockly/editor/blocklyc.jsp?project=46725

Here is a video.

Why?

Why don’t they make the cool outfits in adult sizes?



Some of the best robotics/space exploration shirts I've ever seen are just for kids!

Adapt-ation

I am lucky enough to have an Arlo Complete Robot System from Parallax, Inc. and my homemade mid-size version that I call m-Arlo. The bots are powered by Sealed Lead Acid 12-volt batteries. Parallax also makes a great charger (included in the complete system).

The Arlo Battery Charger - 2.1 mm is designed to charge 12 VDC sealed lead acid (SLA) batteries, such as those used on the Arlo Robot system. This device will charge either 1 or 2 SLA batteries at a time, and it mates with the charging jack that comes standard on the Arlo Power Distribution Board (#28996).

This charger fits the 2.1 mm inner diameter power jack in the Arlo Power Distribution Board (#28996) kits made beginning June 2015. (Prior to that, a 2.5 mm power jack was used, to fit the original Arlo Battery Charger - 2.5 mm) The older version is what I have on m-Arlo.

If you have the new Arlo Battery Charger - 2.1 mm Plug and need to use it with the earlier Arlo Power Distribution Board - the one with the 2.5 mm barrel jack you need an adapter. Adafruit has what you need here - https://www.adafruit.com/product/2897 They say, ""Hrmph! All I have is a power supply with a 2.1mm plug and my doodly-whatsit has a 2.5mm jack. I keep trying to force the plug to fit but that 0.4mm difference just won't work....what am I going to do!? ENTER The Adapter. This 2.1mm to 2.5mm adapter is the best way to adapt a 2.1mm plug so that it will fit into a 2.5mm jack."

Works great!

With limited descriptions on the web - I ordered another elsewhere that wasn't what I needed. This one is just right and inexpensive too. It cost way more to have it shipped - so order some other goodies too!

Friday, June 1, 2018

m-Arlo Practice

Parallax mid-sized Arlo, m-Arlo - learning to make accurate turns. Programmed to Beep, turn 90 CW,  Beep, turn 180 CCW,  Beep, and turn 360 CW, Beep - all at a very controlled speed. This is all in C Language - BlocklyProp is not able to take advantage of all the DHB-10 features yet.