Categories: Robot Hacks and Mods
Hey everybody. There's been an awful lot of talk on the Rovio here, with a lot of research and ideas being shared.
It was mentioned in this thread that the Rovio is "just waiting to be hacked."
And I concur fully.
SO -
I would love to know what the robot experts are planning to do with their Rovio (when it comes out.)
What wild and crazy mods and hacks can you think up? Possible or a little far-fetched, it doesn't matter!
Go crazy - I can't wait to hear what everyone's got cooking.
Pete
Peter Redmer
Administrator
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Moderator
Madison WI, United StatesI'm thinking a raisable 'fishing pole' with a length of yarn or heavy thread, with a fuzzy weight on the end; and a motorized reel. Go fishing for cats! Cast into difficult waters, twitch the rod and try to catch a big one! We often play 'tug of war' with our cats, I'm wondering how heavy the Rovio is and whether it would have enough traction to play with a cat.
Rovio rules!
Wisconsin Iron :: Cellular Atomics
Member
Melbourne, AustraliaPeter Redmer said: It was mentioned in this thread that the Rovio is "just waiting to be hacked."
I'll wait for more technical details before I decided just how hackable Rovio is. That said, I'll probably steal Mr Scotts idea and slap a robotic arm on there.
looks cool video your house while your away spot a bad guy call the cops . or spy gadget lol james bond ...
Member
Nelson, New ZealandI might attatch my ER1 gripper and communicate with it through my PC.
People yearn after this robotic dream, but you can't strip your life of all meaning, emotion and feeling and expect to function.
Robotic madness http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/
Since no built-in "hackabality" is mentioned by the company, I am going to guess that it is not a feature. Of course, I wish it were easily hackable. But, I suppose the very definition of the word means that you make it do something it wasn't designed to do.
I currently have a half-finished project on my porch. It is a Roomba floor vacuum, with a laser pointer and light sensors on board. Since the roomba has a serial port on board, it was easy to connect a basic stamp and bluetooth module to it, so I can use my home-computer to send commands. The idea is that as the Roomba spins in place, the laser pointer will hit various retro-reflective targets around the room and the reflected light will activate the light sensor. Since the location of the reflectors is known, and the angle between readings can be measured, it is possible to determine the absolute position of the Roomba.
Of course, the Rovio has a built-in navigation ability. All other features of the robot are already available elsewhere. But, the navigation ability at this price is certainly groundbreaking.
It would certainly be nice to just query the "navigation processor chip" (or what ever they call that part of the robot) using a serial port, and have it reply with a message giving the position of the robot. Then this navigation ability could easily be added available to all robots.
Moderator
United StatesI think that's pretty much what the NorthStar system provides. A "where am I" query to a navigation subsystem.
The Rovio is just the first product from WowWee that makes use of the system. I expect the system will be adaptable to many other platforms.
Here's an introductory article on the NorthStar technology.
How-Rovio-Finds-Its-Way---The-NorthStar-System-by-Evolution-Robotics
ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)
The Rovio is to cost $300, but to purchase the detector from the development kit cost $1,400, and the projector costs $600. Odd pricing structure!
Here is a link to a place to purchase the Northstar development kit at $1,800. I think I will wait fo the Rovio to come out and hack into it.
http://www.robotshop.ca/home/suppliers/evelotion-robotics-en/evolution-robotics-northstar-system.html
Joe Dunfee
Member
Nelson, New ZealandAbsolutly cadcock4, I have seen that link several times being an ER1 owner and baulked at the cost of NorthStar, So at $300 it's a steal. I think there may be a lot more to the NorthStar system shown in your link cadcock4 than will be applied to the Rovio.
People yearn after this robotic dream, but you can't strip your life of all meaning, emotion and feeling and expect to function.
Robotic madness http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/
The system in the Rovio is officially named the NorthStar system, as stated on Evolution's web site. I've read about their system, and it is not complicated in terms of its hardware. I
Northstar is simply a camera viewing a target and calculating its position from the image. This is quite commonplace, and you get this sort of feature with the games that come with cheap $30 webcams. Of course, their system uses a coded infrared signal... but again, not novel and a normal thing to see on college-level robots.
I think the novelty of their design is that this infrared target is projected onto the ceiling. Since it looks like a very simple LED is being used to project the target cost is not an issue. Even if they swapped to using an infrared laser and projecting a more refined pattern cost would not go up much. You can purchase laser-pointers with this sort of feature for under $5 retail.
Joe Dunfee
(on a side note... they call their company "Evolution Robotics" but clearly they are actually believers in "Intelligent Design.")
Moderator
Madison WI, United Statescadcoke4 said: (on a side note... they call their company "Evolution Robotics" but clearly they are actually believers in "Intelligent Design.")oh no, say it isn't so! Where did you see that, in their 'Our Company Philosophy' statement?!
Rovio rules!
Wisconsin Iron :: Cellular Atomics
No, it wasn't something I read... but because I don't think they expected to walk into an electronics store after a tornado, and find a robot has assembled itself by random chance.
Joe Dunfee
Moderator
United StatesIt is a little humerous that a company with a name of Evolution Robotics espouses their ability to further the future of robotics through the company's intelligent designs.
Since robots are (currently) our creations, I couldn't whole heartedly argue a stance of intelligent design or evolution for robotic advances. Companies don't predictably make intelligent decisions.
Market driven Mutation would seem a better model to describe how products lurch into the next generation. It's not survival of the "best" or "fittest". It's survival of the most marketable and most profitable.
Rovio is an excellent example of a recent product mutation. It's unlike anything else in the WowWee line. A move away from cutesy toy to utilitarian platform. It has groups of strong supporters and equally strong detractors. Market forces will decide whether it's an ascendent creature, or a dead end.
ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)
Member
IE, CA, United StatesMarket Driven Mutation could be a good name for a rock band.
Watch out, don't step in the anthropomorphization.
A few years back, I proposed to one company that they put a laptop on a motorized base and basically create something like the Rovio (the company makes large theatrical sets). However, I was picturing something much taller than the Rovio. I also was suggesting adding a pan/tilt controlled webcam with a laser pointer attached to it.
The purpose was to put it into another shop we were setting up in another state. This way, our local engineer can have a remote presence in the shop there. If a worker has a question about how something goes together the engineer can control the robot via the internet. The big benefit is that the guy in the shop can point to something and say "This part [pointing] may interfere with this part [pointing] right here [pointing]". Then the engineer can either show a solution by bringing up a CAD drawing on his screen and showing it to the shop guy that way, or use the laser pointer on the camera to point to the real-world object in the shop and tell his solution.It is very difficult to try to do these things via the telephone, because you can't describe visual stuff using words very easily.
Kits or pre-build robots have been available to do this stuff for a while, but the prices have been in the $2,000 range and skywards from there.
Now the Rovio has some issues in the application I've been discussing. The biggest one is that a shop floor will be very unfriendly to those wheels. There are always power or welding cables to go over. The diameter to be concered about is on the little wheels, not the outer diameter of the omnidirectional wheel assembly. Even in a home enviroment, going from tile to a shag rug could be a problem, or over a door threshole (my old farm house has some on the inside.
I wonder if the wheel motors and wheels themselves can be swapped out and beefier ones substituted. The omnidirectional wheels on the Airtrax forklist are nice because they have a larger diameter perimeter wheel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPmC4KPvOfg
Joe Dunfee
I'm not very good at hacking, so i'll just tape a picture of roboquads face to it.
Last words I said to my Roboquad:
May the force be with you.
Remember the roboquad. I miss him.
Moderator
United StatesI've always considered the control logic to the be harder part of getting a good robot built. The mechanicals for electric golf carts, wheel chairs, and the like are well established.
Picture a two tracked platform. Once you've got the sensors and control logic figured out, it doesn't matter much whether the tracks are two inches tall, or the size of a bulldozer. You'd need to adjust the sensor ranges for a taller, wider platform, but the fundamental flow charting of the behaviors wouldn't change (much).
It would seem to me that the Rovio logic could be strapped up with some switching relays to drive motors as large as you'd want. The Omni Wheels are a new spin for me, so I don't know what upscaled options there are for those.
ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)
Member
Nelson, New ZealandMrScott, That is exactly what I plan when I get a rovio, a Larger wheelbase to cope with our varying floor coverings. great minds think alike, so they say.
Cadcoke4: great idea you have, sounds an interesting concept.
People yearn after this robotic dream, but you can't strip your life of all meaning, emotion and feeling and expect to function.
Robotic madness http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/
Administrator
United StatesI wonder how strong the motors are, to enable the Rovio to "climb" over various obstacles, such as wires, etc, and different floor coverings. Could mods be done to "strengthen" the robot's motors to enable it to climb over more difficult terrain?
Peter Redmer
Administrator
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Nelson, New ZealandMotors are rated for the amps they draw so strengthening them won't work, you would have to replace with a higher rating or torque.
People yearn after this robotic dream, but you can't strip your life of all meaning, emotion and feeling and expect to function.
Robotic madness http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/
Moderator
United StatesThat's why I was figuring the way to go would be to pick up some high torque motors, and make some control logic for them. The controller would take the existing motor drive signals, and use them control high current equivalent signals to the big motors.
Junkyard bots typically run around on things like starter motors. If it can turn over a sluggish V8, it can crawl over rough terrain. Motors like that aren't built for long duty cycles, though. They don't like to run long between cooling periods. Maybe some motors from those kid ride on cars would be the right balance of torque and cool runtime.
An idea chewing away at the back of my brain would be to have the Rovio dock with the larger base, and in so doing, tap into the robot drive controller to energize the big base. It would then trundle off to do its business, and disembark when it got into an area that needed the small footprint.
Sort of like a Mecha for the mecha.
ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)
Member
Nelson, New ZealandNow that's a good idea MrScott, M'mmmm.
People yearn after this robotic dream, but you can't strip your life of all meaning, emotion and feeling and expect to function.
Robotic madness http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/
Don't forget that the ability to drive over objectes is large impacted by the size of the perimeter wheels. So, to really gain in that ability you need larger wheels, and you may find this to be more expensive than the motors... as in around $80 per wheel.
I wonder if there is a strategy for going over objects that I am missing. Perhaps if the Rovio were to simultaniously rotate and move across the object. Then the small perimeter wheels don't have to roll over the object. The larger diameter wheels are the ones that do.
I will mention that the style of omni-directional robot that uses 4 wheels (arranged like a regular car) are better at climbing over objects (at least when moving forward or backward). This is because most of the time a robot is traveling forward. In this type of 4 wheel configuration, the perimeter wheels are not being asked to roll at all.
There is, however, a drawback to the 4-wheel approach. Unless there is a suspension, only 3 of the omni-wheels have good contact with the ground. A 4th wheel could be up in the air. Since the omni-wheel approach to movement requires for some tires to move sideways, the loss of that 4th tire causes the robot to move off course. The 3-wheel version (like the Rovio) is better at moving along the desired path.
Am I being clear about the issue?
Joe Dunfee
Moderator
United StatesI have no doubt that bigger motors aren't the real need. It's bigger wheels, and the ground clearance they provide. The motors are the answer to the extra power needed to handle the bigger wheels. Notice I talked about a whole new base spliced into the exsting Rovio motor control. I also admitted I had no clue what upsizing options there were for the omniwheels.
As to why I'd want a more rugged platform, it's because I'm getting a wee bit tired of robots that can't transition from hardwood to low pile, to medium pile carpeting. A fair number of RC cars are useless on anything other than pavement.
I expect Rovio will be much better at varied terrain than RSV2, but I expect that I couldn't send it down the driveway to fetch the newspaper.
I share your concerns about the omni-wheels being able to handle obstacles. In a four wheel system going in a straight line, the efficient thing to do is to align two wheels with the direction of travel and have the other two side slipping perpendicular to the travel. That's fine until you run into that broomstick that's fallen across the path.
I don't know how well the two driving wheels will be able to push the sideslipping wheels up and over the obstacle. Some obstacle handling behaviors might be needed to have the robot "spin" over a low obstacle, rather than try to take it on in a straight shot.
Perhaps something like lining one wheel up ready to roll over the obstacle, then doing a translating spiral rotation to have one wheel at a time climb over the obstacle as the robot moves forward as it rotates.
ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)
Member
Nelson, New ZealandThere's no easy answer to cover ALL terrain in a single robot, I think one has to do the best one can within thier own working enviroment and decide what area's that the bot is going to traverse the most.
People yearn after this robotic dream, but you can't strip your life of all meaning, emotion and feeling and expect to function.
Robotic madness http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/
ScottE said "Perhaps something like lining one wheel up ready to roll over the obstacle, then doing a translating spiral rotation to have one wheel at a time climb over the obstacle as the robot moves forward as it rotates."
This is exactly what I was suggesting. Although, it would be hard to visually steer this way, I wonder if the navigation system can handle this method.
Joe Dunfee
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