Animatronic Agent

This is the most complex project I am currently developing in this series.  It addresses a particularly interesting set of Creative Peripheral questions: why are there no robotic desktop computer peripherals? 

I chose this inexpensive robotic toy from Amazon as the first attempt to address this question, because it's relatively simple.  The armatures, motors and mechanics are already completely developed.  I simply replaced the original driver board with one of my own design, which allows the desktop computer to output speech and to control the arm, head and mouth movements.  The system contains a Winbond text to speech conversion chip and a USB-serial chip, so a desktop computer can simply send timed text strings and the device will speak them. 

In the first iteration, the firmware is designed to control the arm, head and mouth movements independently so the desktop computer need only send strings.  For more powerful and flexible desktop apps, the protocol could be designed to incorporate escape sequences which would allow motor control commands to be embedded in a text stream, or separate control commands.

I am at the moment developing these devices in conjunction with a class I'm teaching at The Crucible in Oakland, California.  The class is called Toy Hacking Workshop, and you can find out more details about it at my Learn Electronic Sculpture site.

One interesting component of that class which may make it into an Agent design is the ability to track passerby using stereo ranging sensors in the agent's head. 

Probably the most interesting telematic experiment I can think of is the inclusion of a webcam, and software such that you could assign agent control permission to a friend.  Then the doll becomes their remote agent, and they could see you, hear you, talk to you, turn "their" head and follow you as you move about your space, etc.  A complex project, but compelling.

I'll post hardware design, protocol and software examples here in the next few months.  Stay tuned.