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Robot Construction Log

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FIFO:
    For the past year I have been working on constructing the robot described in the 1979 book
How To Build Your Own Working Robot Pet by Frank DaCosta, and I thought that you all
might like to see some pictures of it. The purpose of the robot as described in the book is to
imitate a dog, and so when completed it will be able to navigate a room with sonar, respond to
voice commands, and issue electronic barks. The reason that I decided to build this robot is because
it uses older technology.

    Right now I only have the body constructed, but soon I will be able to start work on the
electronics which will consist of several linear IC's, 74xx series IC's, an Intel 8085 CPU, and
three Intel 8155 CPU peripheral chips. As you can probably see from the pictures, the electronics
will mostly be constructed by wire wrapping with the exception of a few PCBs.

    Hopefully you all will find this interesting. I will post updates as I make more progress, but it might
be some time till I can work on it because of school.

I have attached two pictures below which hopefully you will be able to see.

mklrobo:
 8) Cool!   8)
If you are going to make it resemble something, may
I suggest, K - 9 , modeled from the science fiction show, Dr. Who.
(Everybody knows Tom Baker was the original Dr. Who)
There seems to be empy parts in your robot for expansion, or
to carry things, like, books, food, remote, DVDs, etc.
I would like to ask a question, where permissible; Where did
you acquire your voice command software/IC chips?
I appreciate your help.  ;D ;D ;D

FIFO:

--- Quote ---There seems to be empy parts in your robot for expansion, or
to carry things, like, books, food, remote, DVDs, etc.
--- End quote ---
    About half of the large empty space in the main body of the robot will be
taken up by two 6v lead acid batteries. The reason I am using lead acid
batteries is that the main drive motor will require over an amp of current,
and the robot is designed to run for several hours at a time.


--- Quote ---I would like to ask a question, where permissible; Where did
you acquire your voice command software/IC chips?
--- End quote ---
    Since the technology I am using is relatively old, the voice command system
is very crude. The operator starts by singing a reference pitch, and then sings
four data pitches. If a data pitch is higher than the reference pitch, than it is considered
a one, however if it is lower, it is a zero. For example if the operator were to sing a
reference pitch, and then to sing two low pitches followed by two high pitches,
the data would be interpreted as binary 0011, or three in decimal. The different numbers
would be mapped to different functions for the processor to call. The circuit is composed
eight TTL logic chips, a 555 timer, and a transistor amplifier and is hard to describe with
out the schematic, however if you are interested I will post the schematic with an explanation.


   

mklrobo:
 8) cool!
Your info;
The circuit is composed eight TTL logic chips, a 555 timer, and a transistor amplifier and is hard to describe without the schematic.
Works for me! I understand your intent. The high or low frequency is detected,
then initiates a logic low or high, stacking on the bits until the complete command
data byte/word is formed. Awesome! ;D
I did something like this with transmitting data, in an analog way. confusing?
I made a data transmission method, I call Morse Tone, which tones are used on a frequency of 150 Mhz to pass data. four tones give a binary byte to transmit data, decoded by a common DTMF decoder. The decoded tone is "weighted" to a MCU to provide a data bus. It works well at slow speeds, but can be used very long distances, or locally. I have not tried a faster
decoder, but I assume it could be used at faster rates.
Thanks for your info.  ;D ;D ;D

Ibaeni:
I'd agree with the comments about K-9. It'd be a cool addition to the project to create an outer case similar to K-9, if you're a fan of the show.

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