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The important thing about this patent, as well as the general chassis design
for the 914, is of course that it covers using industry standard 5.25" PC drive
bays in a mobile robot, which is a key element for the PC Bot concept and
ongoing related products.
Richard Lepack, the President of White Box Robotics sent me his report from
this year's Maker Faire. Rich Writes:
During the weekend of May 3-4 I attended Maker Faire (www.makerfaire.com)
in San Mateo, California, where an estimated 65,000 attendees of all ages came
to see the most varied exhibition I've personally ever seen.
While having breakfast at the hotel on the first morning, I saw a specimen of a
man I'd never seen in a hotel environment before. He would have been better
suited in a Bruce Willis or Denzel Washington movie. He was dressed in black
boots up to his knees, black trench coat, leather gloves up to his elbows and
cut off at the fingers. Dark maroon vest with chains, bald and ears pierced half
a dozen times. He was a Maker! Once I got to Maker Faire, he fitted right in!
That's what people who build the weird, whacky and sometimes totally useless,
but totally cool stuff are called at this show. Makers! On a few occasions I had
people ask me, "Are you a Maker?". Hmmm. I guess so, I responded.
This was really a personally interesting show. I saw a personal back mounted jet
pack and simulator, PC Case mod that was a beaver, an R2-D2 replica about 31/2
feet tall, a solar powered electric tricycle, fire breathing mechatronic robots,
just to name a few things. Just take at look at the video on the maker faire web
above and you'll get the idea.
White Box Robotics was in the Microsoft booth showing the 914 PC Bot and how
Makers can use the .NET Framework. The reception was very good. It's interesting
how some people immediately think of half a dozen potential uses for it.
If you are ever in San Mateo or Austin during Maker Faire, be sure not to miss
it!
There are many sources of news around the Internet about Maker Faire, but be
sure to check out this one over at
ExtremeTech featuring the 914. Also, check out this video - The Best of
Maker Faire:
Our very own Dave Evans
has just about finished his much anticipated 914 software entitled
B.R.A.I.N.
Dave plans to release a Version 1.0 of
B.R.A.I.N. in the
next few days. From his website:
"B.R.A.I.N. is a Windows based software
application that runs on the 914 robot. It also runs on a remote client (PC) to
allow for tele-presence and tele-operation of the robot. B.R.A.I.N. is designed
to bring your Robot to life in seconds. After a simple install process, your 914
is up and running, allowing it to navigate, sense, speak, and transmit video."
Support for B.R.A.I.N. will be through the
914pcbots.com forums, in a
special section.
Via, pioneers of the mini-itx form factor system board, have announced a new processor core which is code named Isaiah.
As time goes on, processors will always get faster and use less power. The Isaiah sticks with this trend, providing roughly twice the performance of the Via C7 at the same power - and there is always the potential for dual core versions too.
Although not yet released, of course the Isaiah will offer another future 914 upgrade path, competing with current Intel based mini-itx boards.
You can check a very in depth article about the Isaiah over at The Inquirer.
You may remember an project
from the University of Toledo to mount a large monitor to the 914. Since
then, the 914 has been used for recruiting prospective students at Toledo, which is reported in an article
over at the Toledo Blade. From the article:
"The White Box Robotics 914 PC-BOT's job is to provide a "wow factor" to make
sure visitors don't forget UT, said Nick Morgan, assistant director of
undergraduate admissions.
Students are visiting a lot more campuses and we want to stand out," he said.
Mr. Morgan said high school juniors and seniors used to visit a campus or two
before deciding where to get their degree. Now it's common for them to visit
four campuses or more, he said.
So schools have to keep looking for ways to stand out."
ActiveFace is a piece of
software that may interest some of you who are programming your 914 in Visual
Studio .NET
From the ActiveFace website: "ActiveFace biometric solution automatically captures faces in the viewing
area of a camera and finds a match in less than 500ms even with low quality web
cams. This makes it an outstanding and affordable choice compared to other
biometric solutions."
Although not free, ActiveFace is
rather cheaper than other commercial solutions. There is a
compiled
demo application that you can download and use to test the functionality with,
although the main intention of ActiveFace is that it should be used as an add-in
to Visual Studio .NET - in a similar way to the 914 .NET controls. This means
that you can easily add face recognition to your .NET project, which should be
able to identify individuals as they enter the room.
I've tried out the demo application with reasonable success using two people,
a plastic Star Wars Stormtrooper toy, and the dog as test subjects. ActiveFace
of course requires training to learn the individuals that it is to recognise, but this only takes a couple of minutes - taking repeated
samples as you move around in front of the camera.
C6jones720 sent in this modification to add a small vacuum cleaner to his 914. Chris writes:
I don’t know about you guys but when I show people my robot after their initial reaction of “Wow – a real robot!” their next reaction is to say “So, what does it do?”
If I had a penny for every time I was asked that question, I would be a rich man. So I got to thinking. I’ve got this amazing 914 robot with such great potential, what can I make it do for me?
Well one of those robotic applications people always seem to mention is vacuuming the floor. Realistically its not that huge a task, and given that the robot has digital I/O available it should be possible to use it and make a 914 perform the task of vacuuming a small floor. I thought I’d give it a go and see what happens:
I popped down the local shops and purchased a cordless vacuum cleaner. It comes with its own 6volt lead acid battery. It simply consists of a motor and a battery. If the On/Off switch was forced to On always, it would be a simple task to turn the vacuum on and off using a relay and a transistor.
I seem to recall one of James’s videos on the site showing his robot drive around avoiding obstacles using Player. It struck me at the time that this would be suitable for use as a vacuuming algorithm. The vacuum would be switched on whilst the robot drove around a room. After a preset period of time the robot would turn off the vacuum and return to the docking station for charging.
You can also check out a video of the vacuuming 914 in action on YouTube:
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