It's a hard knock life...

Not much of an update to give this week.  I had to finish up my school work as this was the last week for these classes.  Also, working on improving my career so working as much as I can to keep cash flow coming in to pay bills and survive. 

With budgets, new policies, and hour cuts at work, it makes it hard to fund your hobbies you enjoy doing so much.  All I can do is work with what I got at the moment.  There is so much potential here but as always money puts a limit on everything that we do.  In the meantime, I will be doing research and looking for new parts to get once I'm ready. 

BizSol Systems Official

BizSol Systems is the official group's name developing Butler.  With so much required for this project, we have been working on putting together a team to help keep up with all that is going on. 

Based out of Orlando, FL, our team will be made up of all different ages and lifestyles to help develop new ideas for the future with Butler being the first project.  We are currently working on our site to involve the community more in our projects and get feedback from you all as well.  Thanks for reading and keep checking back daily for more updates on what's going on.

http://www.bizsolsystems.com

Troubleshooting to its MAX

After quite a bit of time waiting for my replacement part, I finally received the new wireless module for Butler.  After refreshing my memory on all that I learned about the module, I was finally able to connect to the EEPROM and rewrite information in the module.  Well, I've hit another road block.  I have officially prepared myself to hit a road block after each step me and the group completes.

Now, I'm having troubles with connecting to my Belkin wireless router.  I've given the right settings to the module so it can connect but something isn't adding up.  I'm most likely going to do some research on what type of router I best need to use for flawless connectivity.  I want to figure out though why I can not connect to current router.  If I was to mainstream this product, it would need to connect to any router without any issues.

So, the new task at hand is to research wireless connectivity and the best approach to take.  I've had others ask why I'm not doing Bluetooth or other forms of connectivity.  The main reason is distance and being a strong wireless connection that can send lots of data if need be.  Bluetooth is short range at the moment and is more expensive.

I'm not giving up on the project and have started asking questions to the community to get some feedback as not much material is out on the web for research purposes regarding what I'm trying to accomplish.

Not a Good Day

On Tuesday, I received the wireless module and separate microphone for Butler.  I'll need to get a soldering iron for the microphone and I'm sure there is more soldering in the future.  I can't put a robot together with just a bread board.  I mean I could but I'm not going to.  The bread board is only meant for prototyping and keeps everything clean while testing.

Well yesterday, 8/7/2013, I spent a good 11 hours working on the wireless connectivity of Butler.  After spending all that time retracing my steps, I come to find out that I had a Dead on Arrival (DOA) part.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty upset and by the end of the day, I had a headache coming on from all the head scratching trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.  So, now I have to wait for the supplier's response to see how to resolve this issue in a timely manner.

In the meantime, I'm going to work on doing a video about the Butler project.  This will be about a week long project I'm assuming for what I'd like to have in the video.  Thanks for reading!

Starting to Plan the Body of Butler

I've started doing some research on how I want Butler to look and putting down measurements on what I find as I work.

I chose to do a dual track system on the bottom similar to "Wall-E".  The belt will be 3" wide.  I chose to go with lynxmotion's parts.  They have a good reputation and durable.  After doing some calculations, the motors will need to be doing 292RPM for the 3" diameter sprockets that'll be used for the tracks on the bottom of the body.  The equation is RPM = (( 60 * speed ) / ( diameter * PI )).

The speed remember is how many inches you want to go per second, in/s.  I did some calculations and found out that a human walking averages 45in/s.  What I did is laid out a tape measurer and walked normally the length of the tape measurer.  I had a small tape measurer at the time of 138" and I was able to walk it in 3.1 seconds.  You get 44.5" when you do the math.  So I just averaged it to 45" to make it easier.  The diameter is the size in inches of how big the wheel or sprocket attached to the motor.  In my case, it's 3".

I've chose to go with this motor times two for the track system.  Planetary Gear Motor - 12vdc 20:1 300rpm (6mm shaft)  It's got the speed I need.  Now, the plan is to keep Butler light and strong so as soon as weight is added onto these motors, the RPMs will drop and hopefully just to the right number that I've proposed above.  That's why I chose to do a little bit of a higher RPM'd motor.

Here's a sketch of what I have planned.  My goal is to come as close to this as possible.  The box I already have on hand and uploaded it in my first post.

First Week of August Video Update

Here's the video update for this first week of August on Butler's progress.  Enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post.  I'm usually posting once a day at least on what progress has been done.  Sundays are usually quiet unless I have extra time to do some work.  Thanks for visiting!

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!