[Tony Ellis]

My next (hobby) robot creation will be a radical change of direction for me, so far (as with the earlier AIMEC series) I have opted for the more complex stuff like speech recognition, TTS etc to be off-robot on a bi-directional 2.4GHz wireless link. Then I used multiple microcontrollers in the robot itself.

Inside the new robot I am now going to use 2 micro PC's:

http://www.fit-pc.co.uk/meet-fit-pc-II.html

These puppies are absolutely miniature, yet have good enough spec and one will do quality speech recognition (DNS10) and TTS while the other will do and face/object recognition and have the Ai core. A couple of PIC18Fxxxx microcontrollers will do all the slave stuff like sensor data pre-analysis and controlling motors etc. But there will be no need for the external PC.

Toymaker

[Maviarab]

You made Robin Williams 

[Freddy]

Looks like a great start.  How did you make that head ?  Is it solid or are there movable parts in there ?

[lrh9]

Those mini-PCs do look cool. If I ever went into robotics I was thinking about using one. Not that small, but maybe a mini-ITX.

How are you going to power them if you don't mind me asking? I noticed a DC 12v jack on the back. Do you have a portable power solution?

[Tony Ellis]

The head is hollow and made from fibreglass nothing is installed yet the hardest bit will be getting the cameras into the eye area!

The micro PC's will be powered from a sealed lead acid battery they only consume 9W so portable power is not a problem. I always use 2 separate batteries on my robots one for electronics and the other for motors.

Toymaker

[Sigma X]

How were you able to make those shapes with fiberglass i'm curious

[Art]

Toymaker,

You didn't really say that you made the Bicentennial head, just that it was constructed of fiberglass.

I've seen them on other sites and some offered for sale as it is almost an exact replica of the one
used by Robin Williams.

It would be perfect for a home built robot and I'm sure the other interested members would love to be
kept informed of your progress so please consider posting it here (on this forum).

Thanks!

[Sigma X]

ok I see thanks alot

[Sigma X]

What type of OS is being used for this project? Is it somthing like Ubuntu (poor spelling) ,or somthing like a light version of windows?

[Art]

I think it  (the robot) would use a programming language instead of an Operating System.

There are so many "standards" from which to choose it comes down to what the programmer
is most comfortable with and what he's trying to accomplish.

With robotics, it all comes down to the programming not the hardware.

[Sigma X]

Tell me about it  I currently have projects not completed because of not being to handle programming but I have completed alot due to finding other methods

[Tony Ellis]

The OS on this robot will be XP, this is necessary to have DNS10 (speech recognition) and TTS

I glad you guys like the project!

Toymaker

[Sigma X]

Are you kidding I've been working on a project like this for a while
i'm curious though can this work with ultra hal meaning can ultra hal control servos?

[Art]

Hal is capable of a lot of things and running external program is one of them.

Whether or not it is capable of sending data to an external port such as USB or SERIAL
would be the real question for it to be able to actuate servos.

Girder used to have a free version of its program that could handle a lot of externals.

One program you might look into is really designed for HA...Home Automation and it's
called vCrib. It can handle a variety of hardware and also features Speech Synthesis and
voice recognition. Oh...it is also FREE.
www.vcrib.com - nice, helpful people there!

Not robotics but they can certainly help and perhaps give you a nudge in a better direction.

You might also try www.cocoontech.com

[Sigma X]

Thanks alot art this will surely get me going I'll let you know of my progress

Girder I've never heard of it have you tried i for your robot?

You stated that hal can run external ptograms and sendings signals to USB may be a problem
what if A micro controller(s) sends the signal to the servos to handle movement can this be a possibility?

Vcrib this may be used for a later project and may be tied in to many others thanks for the link!

Sorry for all the questions