So I was recently discussing favourite robot characters which include:
- Claptrap from the Borderlands games
- Bender from Futurama
- Baymax from Big Hero Six (both the marvel and the film version)
- Fender from the Robots movie
- Wall-e
- Haro from the Gundam series
- Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit movie
- Chappie
This led to a discussion about what type of robot we would like to have around the house, and ultimately I decided on a kind of friendly robot that doesn’t really “do” much but communicates and entertains, and is fairly autonomous. After all, I suppose we are heavily influenced by what we like…
And so, I thought about Sparki, and his current capabilities and decided to try and think of ways to make Sparki more like an entertainment bot.
One of the main sensors for this is his buzzer. The buzzer is a piezo electric buzzer, and this means that when voltage is applied to the buzzer, the plate inside bends backwards and forwards creating sound waves, like this:
This is a great addition to Sparki as it can be used to indicate when various aspects of the program have been reached and if situations are true or false.
Also, in this circumstance, when attempting to make Sparki more like an entertainment bot, it really helps that he can produce melodies and sounds as forms of interaction and “dancing”.
However, unfortunately the piezo buzzer cannot be used to make Sparki actually talk, for this I would need attach an extension.
Over the weekend I will upload the first entertainment bot code and a video of this in action.
