Silly Mistake and a New Piece Added

Well with me being so excited with getting past my last hurdle, as soon as I got out of work and ate some dinner, I went to Walmart to get some rechargeable batteries to use for my project.  I put them in my battery holder and I have no power.  What the?  The batteries were completely dead out of the package.  Go figure.  I put them in the Energizer charging base that I already had.  The base tells me they are completely dead and will take a few hours.  NO!!!  I guess that was a sign to go to bed.

I wake up in this Morning to check on the batteries and they are fully charged.  Perfect.  Let me remind you it was late the night before and apparently I wasn't thinking straight.  To get the Arduino Mega 2560 to boot up properly with external power, you need at least 7V.  I only had 4.8V coming in.  So I had to put this to the side till I make another run later today to get some more supplies.

While I made my late night run, I grabbed a cheap soldering iron to do some minor work here and there while I troubleshoot and get everything laid out for Butler.  When I start putting the final project together, I'll get the proper tools to do the job correctly.  When I ordered my wireless WiFly module, I almost got the Electret microphone to use for Butler to hear the voice commands.  I soldered on three different colored cables to connect to the breadboard and adjusted my previous sketch and BitVoicer program to listen to the external microphone rather than the laptop's microphone.  I wanted to get this done ASAP as for some reason the microphone on this laptop was not doing the project justice.  With no issues at all, the microphone is working perfectly.  I even tried it from a distance and no flaws!  Once I get the external power setup, I will create a video to show the last three things done to the Butler project.  Maybe tomorrow I'll have a video for you all to view.

Here's a few photos in the meantime:

 

 

Simple math problems solved from voice commands

After many hours of programming, I finally completed quite a feat today.  I was able to successfully run a voice commanded math problem, have Butler run the math problem, and then display the correct number back to me by blinking the LEDS to whatever the number was.  Granted these are simple math equations but until an LCD or voice box is applied, this will do for now.  The main process has been implemented and conquering this task just shows that there is no limits at this point on what I'll be able to accomplish with Butler's AI.

Today, I ordered the microphone that'll be installed into his system and the wireless card to disconnect the need for the USB cable when processing voice commands through the PC.  I should receive the parts in about four days so I'll have more posts to provide.  Until then, I'll be tweaking the coding for smoother transitions for voice commands and a broad terminology applied for each command.

No pictures or videos today but will certainly have some in tomorrow's post!

Voice Commands and Flashing Lights

So the LEDs and speaker have been added to the system.  BitVoicer has been implemented into Butler.  The voice commands are working great.  Unfortunately, the microphone on this laptop isn't doing it justice.  I'm now working on implementing a microphone into Butler for better voice control from a further distance.

The LEDs are connected to digital pins through a 1000k ohm resistor.  The speaker is connected to a digital pin through a 100 ohm resistor.  The coding has been written and split up through different tabs for better reading of the code and easier to change if needed.

I have found ways to implement different tones to different commands given.  Butler can even play familiar tunes, whistle, and sing.  Butler will certainly have all types of different abilities that will stand above the rest.

Enjoy a few of the videos that we've taken through the progress:

My brain hurts, So much research!

Some new notes to add to the journal.  I found a previous Wall-E robot prototype tutorial.  I plan on using a few parts and techniques it has listed.  I will refer back to this in the future.

BitVoicer will be used for our voice recognition.  I purchased the license for $4.95 today which I was quite pleased with the price for such an advance type of software for robotics.  I've been messing with it to learn the functionality and will be using THIS to practice using BitVoicer.

I'm going to make a quick run to RadioShack to get some resistors, LEDs, and an 8ohm speaker to start working on outputting tones for different commands.  I want to make Butler different from other "typical" robots.  I'm thinking more like R2D2 responses to commands.  I believe I can express feelings with the movements, sounds he makes, and lighting.

The light sensors seem like they will work for their purpose.  I will need probably four different light sensors throughout the body due to a very limited angle of only 5 degrees of detecting the light source.  When the sensor was directed straight into a light source, it worked great.  More study will go into this.

The sonar sensor works.  I did notice that it will error out when there was a sudden change.  Going to research into this further to see if it's the coding or the sensor itself.

Here's a few pictures to entertain you on what's been done so far:

My Toolbox

Light Sensor

HC-SR04 Sonar Sensor

My Setup

BitVoicer

Breadboard / Arduino Mega Setup