Because this page is pretty much only for potential employers to see, here is some info about the basic goals, some details on the project, and why I'm doing it.
Project Motivation
I did a mechatronics project through my school about a year ago that really sparked my interest in small home robotics. The project's scope got cut back due to COVID, so it left me with a yearning to do more.
In November of 2020 I got playing around with OpenCV on my own time and started to get interested in that again. When my hours got cut in January 2021, I figured I had to keep myself occupied, so I started looking at some possible projects with the idea of making a robot that could follow me around. After a few days of bouncing around, I settled on making a computer vision controlled Star Wars replica droid, because it felt like a good intersecion of aesthetics, mechatronics and a 'smart' robot.
I then bought a cheap 3D printer and starting watching youtube videos. A few people have made these droids, but none are anything more than radio controlled. So I thought it would be an awesome challenge to make an expressive robot that could explore and interact with its environment.
Goals / Milestones
Some of these goals are obviously harder than others, but I'm aiming to be past the "middle term" section within the next 6 weeks. After that I'm looking at 6 months + before getting to a the stage of having a robot that can go sit on it's charger when I tell it to. This is all super new to me, so I may never get there, but it's already been an awesome learning experience, and I expect it'll continue to be!
Short term
- Design and print custom body w/o decorative features for testing
- Setup simple drive and UART comms program on Arduino
- Test arduino control of DC motors and servos over UART comms with Raspberry Pi
- Implement simple RPi person detected --> Ard. motors on program
- Implement battery charger connected --> graceful sys. shutdown
- Test basic motion control algorithm (PID velocity control based on encoders or IMU)
- Test stereo vision software for ranging and object detection
Middle term
- Custom power control / dist. board (PCB if affordable)
- Assemble robot without decorative features
- Implement simple following program (person detect - maintain distance in straight line)
Longer term
- Print & attach decorative features
- Environment mapping + exploration algorithm / decision tree
- Existing SLAM algorithms could help
- Encoder data + IMU data
- Voice recogniton mapped to simple software states (follow, home, explore, etc.)
- Add expressive motions & sounds into software based on decision tree
Even longer term
- Build home base / charger
- Inductive charging capability
- Add face recognition and personalized greetings
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