Ai Dreams Forum

Member's Experiments & Projects => General Project Discussion => Topic started by: Spykee on August 30, 2010, 08:25:04 pm

Title: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on August 30, 2010, 08:25:04 pm
I'm just about to start a little chatbot project that uses Spykee, the wifi robot from Meccano:
http://spykeeworld.com/ (http://spykeeworld.com/)

I will give him speech, the one out of the box doesn't do that, and use an AIML based chatbot program for his brain.

I little talking robot that runs around the house. They are dirt cheap from eBay nowadays.

What do you think?

Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Art on August 30, 2010, 10:50:44 pm
Oddly, my Windows 7 warned me NOT to visit that particular site.

Something about trying to obtain private information. >:(
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on August 30, 2010, 11:19:08 pm
Yeah I Know, totally bonkers, both my windows XP IE8 and Mac OSX Safari go into virus/malware meltdown.
And thats the official Meccano Spykee website.

They should come down like a ton of bricks on the company that does their website.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Art on August 31, 2010, 12:07:13 am
Look at your position. One post (your first) and it warns people of potential malware and hijacks...not good.

People are rightfully cautious these days and I'm sure you meant well.

Perhaps there's a link to it somewhere else like YouTube or such....


OK... just found one...Try:
http://www.spykee.org/
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on August 31, 2010, 10:02:05 am
OK, sorry about that. I will update the thread when I've made some progress.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Freddy on August 31, 2010, 10:02:46 am
Welcome to the forum Spykee  :)
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on August 31, 2010, 10:43:36 am
Thank you for the welcome Freddy :)
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Data on August 31, 2010, 01:42:06 pm
I can’t view http://spykeeworld.com/ unless I go to the US site, the UK and International sites say I need flash 8 installed, but I already have flash 10.1 in.  ::)

I can however view the 100% unofficial site @ http://www.spykee.org/

Welcome to the forum Spykee and good luck with your project.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 01, 2010, 09:46:07 pm
Thank you Datahopa.

Have taken delivery of my new Spykee, well, second hand from eBay but new to me. Had fun building it from about a couple hundred bits, took a couple of hours to build but was fun. Just like being a kid again, although I remember the old Meccano being metal instead of plastic. (I guess plastic wasn't invented in those days)

Now I have it whizzing around the house, making beeping sounds and entertaining the kids. (And getting it in the neck from the wife for wasting sixty quid on a silly toy) I have yet to convince her it's for my latest programming project.

Wish these things were around when I was a kid, would have had a blast.

I'm just hoping the novelty will wear off real soon so I can actually start to build the software for him. :)
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Data on September 01, 2010, 10:17:50 pm
Got to say that sounds like a lot of fun. Worth getting it in the neck for.

May the fun continue into your programming.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Art on September 01, 2010, 10:27:49 pm
Yes, Remember:

We don't quit laughing because we grow old.

We grow old because we quit laughing!!

 ;)
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 03, 2010, 01:30:21 pm
This is what i'll be using to create the new software for Spykee:

Visual Studio 2010
C# .NET 3.5
program # - AIML Interpreter C# .NET

Downloaded the AIMLBot.dll and created a sample WIndows Console program. Been modifying and tinkering with the .aiml files a bit, but would probably not spend too much time just yet. Want to get it working end to end, and these are more than enough to get him talking.

Doing the Speech tonight, should'nt be too difficult as i see a built in one for .NET 3.5. (System.speech)

My research prior showed Microsoft SAPI, so can use that if the built in one isn't any good. I suspect they are most probably one in the same though.

Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 06, 2010, 12:46:26 pm
The speech went really well, the built in one has three or four different voices, all pretty robotic sounding, which is great seing as it's going to be for a robot.

Microsoft Mary, Microsoft Mike, Microsoft Sam, and a generic Microsoft one. I'll opt for Mike, he's more Stephen Hawking sounding, in fact I recon he came in personally and did if for them.

Now working on the User Interface to replace the plain old Windows Console.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Freddy on September 06, 2010, 12:49:14 pm
Quote
I'll opt for Mike, he's more Stephen Hawking sounding, in fact I recon he came in personally and did if for them.

That made me chuckle.

Maybe you could put together a video when you are finished ?
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 06, 2010, 03:39:31 pm
lol, yes of course, will definitely do a YouTube jobby :)
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 09, 2010, 11:45:22 pm
Here's the progress I've made so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGLvApZN1M (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHGLvApZN1M)
The conversation is pretty inane, I do apologize, but wanted to get something up for you guys to see.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: DaveMorton on September 10, 2010, 02:54:30 am
That was well done! One can certainly tell that the basic framework of the AIML is the same as ALICE, if one knows (like myself) about ALICE's structure, but that's not a bad thing, in and of itself. Kudos, for an interesting new application of AIML!
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 10, 2010, 12:59:37 pm
Thank you for taking a look and your feedback.
I typo'ed one of those questions, and didn't set up the predicates properly for another. But you are correct, thats a straight out of the box ALICE.

Just need to do a bit more programming work on the Spykee bit, then I will have a look at adding some more robot/Spykee specific stuff to the AIML.

Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Freddy on September 10, 2010, 01:06:58 pm
That's really good.  Is the speaker in the robot ?  And when he moves around is that some kind of auto positioning ?  The voice you chose goes well with the robot I think.

Nice hack  ;D
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Data on September 10, 2010, 02:03:44 pm
Nice work, would be good to make a little personality for him, like you say.

Agree with Freddy, the voice goes well with Spykee.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 10, 2010, 02:07:14 pm
Thank you Freddy. The voice is coming out of the robots built in speaker.

In the video you can hear I'm just behind the camera typing in the questions on my laptop, however as the robot is transmitting itself as a wifi device, I can connect to it anywhere in the house. (Or even in the world using an internet connection) It has a built in camera to see, microphone to hear, and the speaker to speak.

All i need to do now, is enter it in the upcoming Loebner Prize competition, seize control over the internet, and switch it to 'echo mode', ie says whatever I type in. And ta da! I will be able to converse with the judges in a human like way never seen before.

If that fails then I'll just stick to trying to win the lottery. ???
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 10, 2010, 02:10:25 pm
..thank you Datahopa, I think you'r right, I will need to give him his own little personality.
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Spykee on September 10, 2010, 02:25:22 pm
The movements were just me using the arrow keys at various moments, just to make it look more interesting.

The first video I did I forgot to move him at all, and it didnt look very good.

I hadn't really considered linking his movement with the converstaion before you mentioned it, but is a very good idea thinking about it. It would be quite easy to do just by extending the markup

Cool. :)
Title: Re: Spykee Chatbot
Post by: Freddy on September 10, 2010, 04:07:19 pm
Glad I said something useful  ;D

Being able to connect to him remotely over the net is very cool I think - a nice little security feature perhaps...

Good luck on seizing control of the internet !  I do think he would liven up the Loebner prize some what though  ;)