wotudo : Makerfaire_uk

Speech controlled robots

paulfo — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:29:00 GMT

At Maker Faire UK I wanted to have an exhibit anyone could interact with. So I took along my robots and modified one of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (MRDS) Visual Programming Language (VPL) examples to allow both speech and Xbox controller control of them. Note to product teams: shorter product names would be appreciated :-)

All my mobile robots use a differential drive system, that is two wheels independently driven by their own motor. These drive systems allow the robots to spin on the spot or turn progressively in an arc as well as go forwards and backwards just be setting each motors power settings. So both motors going in the same direction at the same speed the robot moves forwards or backwards. One motor going slower than the other causes the robot to turn progressively in one direction. One motor going forward and one going back at the same rates causes the robot to spin.

Because of the way MRDS abstracts common actuators and sensors with generic programming interfaces it means that despite each of my mobile robots having a different differential drive system they can still all be controlled by the same program. All I have to do is configure the program with a manifest file to point it at the right implementation of the differential drive for each robot. I don’t have to change the code of the program at all :-)

Using VPL makes programming robots pretty easy. Your just joining up advanced functions like speech recognition and text to speech, sonar, drive systems etc by defining what output goes into what input. Knowing the available inputs and outputs of each function is the hardest part :-)

There are many things I like about MRDS:

A hobbyist version is free
The dev tool you need for the hobbyist version is free
You get a physics based graphical simulator – so you don’t actually need a real robot to get started
There are several simulated robot platforms to choose from include: Lego NXT, iRobot Create, Coroware Explorer, Mobile Robots Pioneer 3DX.
You don’t have to be a programmer to get going (although in doing real stuff it does help)

The big news flash is that since 26th March Microsoft’s DREAMSPARK means that even High Schools can get the full MRDS Academic version for free!!! Along with all the other ‘developer’ stuff they might want.

Watch my short video on the speech and xbox controller control program I took to Maker Faire – then have a go yourself!

Country Coder: Maker Faire Preparations video

paulfo — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:46:00 GMT

While working all hours to build my multi-touch table and program my robots for Maker Faire UK, I managed to film some of my activity. I finally got to finish editing it Sunday night after the faire and published it today. YouTube has squashed by glorious 16:9 to 4:3 so I'll have to sort that (publishing to Silverlight Streaming for a much better quality job now ;-) ), but for the moment - enjoy my Maker Faire journey in gloriously amateur techni-colour.

Day 1: Maker Faire UK

paulfo — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:22:00 GMT

Wow, awesome, amazing. These all apply to my first day at Maker Faire UK but express the Maker Faire experience completely inadequately. Maker Faire was brilliant. Hmm, not much better let me try again. Today I spent almost the entire day talking to like minded people excited and passionate about making and doing cool stuff. I got on-site to complete set up as soon as the doors opened to exhibitors - 07:00, I left at at 18:00'ish. Except for one brief step out - to buy arrows when a fellow maker pointed out a sale in a hobby shop opposite the Maker Faire venue - I didn't stop all day. Our stand demonstrations went well - the multi-touch table worked pretty well even in the bright spring sunshine (!), A1DW and the iRobot Create ran alternately to charge batteries, for the entire day.

The Xbox controllers used to drive either robot were clearly universal tools in the hands of all ages of demo participant. The real pleasure was so many interested people stopping to discuss the technologies, the setup and the possibilities. A stark contrast to the normal 'Microsoft' exhibit environment where delegate apathy often riegns supreme. Here people were keen and passionately interested - it was a really happy, fun day for me and I look forward to tomorrow.

I had a few snags to sort out first thing but the 'can do' attitude of the organisers saw these all sorted asap! Thanks to Graham for the keyboard replacing the one I left at home - enabling me to get A1DW working. And to Dave for partitions and a Maker Faire banner that help shade the multi-touch table and created such a Top background for R2D2 - James' life size model which many a child and adult enjoyed being photographed with.

Tomorrow I hope to do some filming of the event and other makers exhibits so I can bring you a proper Maker Faire UK report.