DRD1812

Oct 172012
 

At Maker Faire or two ago I bought the Voice Shield kit that is produced by SpikenzieLabs (http://www.spikenzielabs.com).
It fits on top of the Arduino and only uses a few pins of the Arduino so there are lots of other pins available to do other things like trigger a sound, or whatever.

It is based around the ISD4003. (I have used the ISD2560 in previous projects).

I was a little intimidated by the instructions on how to get the interface up and running, but I eventually figured out what I was missing and then it was pretty easy.

Basically you load the ISD4003 with sounds using the separate program, (available from their website) by sort of giving the words a number. Then after that, that program is gone and you can play them using by calling the numbers in your own program.
There are some code snippets there to sort of give guidance.

It actually sounds better than the ISD2560 and it comes with a small amplifier so testing does not require you to build an amplifier to hear things. I found trying to take the sound from my computer wasn’t so easy. There was some crackle noise coming through the computer which was also being recorded. I used my MP3 player and took the output from the headphone jack and the sound was very clean after that.

 

 

I made a carrier board to take some inputs from the Voice Direct speech recognition module.

Here are the electronics that I plan to add to the 1812. There is a servo motor, a speaker, a Sharp gp2d12, Voice Direct module, Arduino and Voice Shield. Missing are the batteries and some LEDs.

 

 

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Oct 172012
 

Here you can see the eye stalks have been added to the body and the whole thing is starting to take shape.

The microphone is hidden in the utility stalk that sticks out at the front. Not sure if I will add a claw or something there.

The electronics are all working, with the exception of the servo. The servo is still to be wired up to an output on my Arduino board.

Getting close to finishing. I just need to add a little detail to the paint and connect the LEDs, add the servo and some sort of linkage to move the eye stalks.

 

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Jun 262012
 
Whistle while you work 1812 style

I bought this speech recognition kit a while ago (well, around 5 years ago). Initially I had all sorts of ideas on how to use it until I found it was a little limited. The board was made by Sensory Inc. and it was called the Voice Direct II. I say was, because it is [...]

May 282012
 
Tricolore

Quick update I have done an initial paint job on my DRD. My DRD will mimic the 1812 DRD from Farscape. There still needs to be a second coat of paint and I have not actually painted the white yet (it is just white Gesso at the moment). And of course some detailing. Have been [...]

May 262012
 
Don't bat an eye

I have been busy working on various parts of the DRD and I finally finished and painted the eyes and stalks. For the lens pieces I got some Friendly Plastic beads and tried various methods of moulding the lens. First attempt was with fingers. Wow, that stuff gets really hot. The second attempt was by [...]

Apr 242012
 
Eye-lights

While waiting for the filler to dry on the DRD shell, I started to play around with the eye stalks. I had been to my local home do-it store and I purchased some corrugated cable tubes that are used behind monitors or computers where the cables are neatly dressed together. I also got some plastic [...]

Apr 192012
 
Paint, sand, fill, paint sand fill

I have been busy sanding, filling and painting the DRD shell. The process started with wood filler and is now at the drywall mud stage. The grit of the sand paper has become quite fine now and then, once it appears to be smooth, painting a matte white finish of gesso shows up the imperfections that [...]

Apr 162012
 
I've got wheels and know how to use them.

I was at the Maker Faire last year in San Francisco and usually I come away with some things from the Maker Shed. This time was no exception and I bought a motor chassis for a robot with 4 wheel drive, I just could not resist. This is the one http://www.makershed.com/product_p/mkseeed8.htm Anyway, I got it [...]

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