BubbleBoy is my little emotional robot. The purpose of BubbleBoy is to serve as a physical representation of simulated behaviour AI. I started this project in March of 2007 (Grade 11) and it’s still working very well. In June 2010, BubbleBoy’s servo arms and wiring were refurbished, to ensure even more longevity. Originally, it was called Pinky, but BubbleBoy sounded more cute. Although BubbleBoy does look like the robot Keepon, BubbleBoy was designed to look like a pink snowman, hence the hat and scarf.

BubbleBoy runs off of an Arduino and has two user inputs, a food button and a water button. These buttons control BubbleBoy’s food and water levels. Both of these levels contribute to BubbleBoy’s behaviour and mood.

Depending on BubbleBoy’s mood, its actions will be faster or slower to create the perception of happiness or sadness. In BubbleBoy’s original behaviour code, its moods range from ‘Hypertastic!’ to ‘Dead’. When BubbleBoy is ‘Hypertastic!’ its actions consists of vibrating its hula ring, spinning its hat, and ‘twitching’ its head. Usually after completing three action sets, BubbleBoy becomes more hungry and thirsty, thereby dropping the level of food and water.

The newer version of BubbleBoy’s Behaviour AI is currently a work in progress. Here’s a broad flowchart of the behaviour, which I will then explain below in detail.

1. Creating the Expectation

This is the observatory phase. BubbleBoy initially does not have any expectation of when to be fed, so it waits around. While it is waiting, its collecting data from all of the sensors and storing them to an array. There has to be 10 numbers in the array for each sensor before BubbleBoy can proceed to the next stage, pattern finding. Once this is fulfilled, and if BubbleBoy is fed/watered, then it goes on to find a pattern.

2. Pattern Finding

BubbleBoy is seen as a simple robot. Thereby, its pattern finding is relatively simple as well. The main idea is to check each sensor’s array and see if there is a pattern within the residuals. Meaning, if looking for a sequential pattern, the array would be iterated through (starting at i=0, stopping after i=8), and i+1 would be subtracted from i. An average of the residual change would be calculated at the same time. The array would be iterated through again, this time to count how many items are within +- 10% of the residual average. If the count is above 7, then it is said that there is a sequential pattern in there.

The same process is done for a secondary pattern, and a ‘thirdary’ pattern. Meaning, every 2nd number and 3rd number is checked to see if there is a pattern. It also goes through and checks with offsets, just incase the pattern is “even/odd/whatever”.

If there are no patterns, a random primary sensor is chosen for BubbleBoy to work with.

A problem exists in determining which pattern for which sensor to trust the most. A thirdary pattern for a photosensor is less dependable than a sequential pattern for a lid switch. This is handled in the next step.

3. Determining the Sensor to Use

The sensor with whatever pattern to follow is chosen through a Bayes Filter. This allows for a simple specification of confidence levels for a given sense resulting in a particular state through a table where all rows add up to 1.0. The sense columns are the sensor and pattern type. Meaning, there’s three sensors for every sensor, giving 9 senses in total. The states are confidence intervals. Anything >= 85 would be considered the most confident.



The numbers in bold are the ones that are more probable to be a result. A sensor in particular to look at is the Xbee for a thirdary pattern. The numbers are dispersed in such a way that it is almost a bimodal distribution. In order to understand why this is, imagine the scenario in real:

Xbee modems can communicate for up to a few meters. If BubbleBoy only receives a message every 3rd instance, it could either be a clever pattern, or it could be a miscommunication.

For this reason, the largest probability is given to the least confident state, and the second largest probability is given to the most confident state. It depends on the Bayes Filter and random roulette for what will actually be chosen.

This is just for determining what sensor is the most confident, that will provide the best result. This can mean that the chosen sensor will be followed, but it also may not. This will be explained in the next step.

4. Calculating the Cost Adjustment

The adjusted cost is determined by using the result from the previous step, and multiplying the probability by the inverse of whatever column it was situated in. In simpler terms, if the result was found in the best confidence interval state, then it would be multiplied by 5. If it was in ( 85, 70 ], it would be multiplied by 4…

This is then used as the sense for the next Bayes Filter. The state is how much of a cost to reduce the sense by.



Once the cost adjustment amount is determined, it is then subtracted from the cost of the particular sense’s cell. All of the senses are in a grid, with the most “primary” being the closest to BubbleBoy. An A* search is then used to choose the closest and least cost sensor. Once this is done, BubbleBoy can get on to entertaining its audience while waiting for food/water!

5. Following the Expectation

This is the main loop of the program. It’s where BubbleBoy is thinking in the present time about if it will be fed or not!

The key idea here is that BubbleBoy is thinking in the now. Meaning, it tracks the patterns differently than it does when it is reflecting back on them (in a “past” thought).

Sensor data is retrieved and placed into an array of size 10. The data at i is checked wither it is within +- 10% of the average in the pattern. The threshold percentage amount differs for the type of pattern, where secondary would be +- 20%, and thirdary would be +- 30%. If the data fits in to the check, then a “yes” counter is incremented.

Once the “yes” counter is >= 6, the food level will begin to decrease by (i/2)^2. At the same time, BubbleBoy will begin to show signs that he is excited to be fed/watered soon, by spinning its hat and bobbing its head.

If the “no” counter is >= 6, then it means that the expectation isn’t really working in the present thought. A flag is set to redo the expectation once BubbleBoy receives food and water.

i is then either incremented or reset to 0, depending if it hit 9 or not. (That’s a sort of obvious step)

6. Real-World Behaviors

When the time elapsed from not receiving food exceeds 150% of that of the observed elapsed time, BubbleBoy goes in to a “wallow” mode. When BubbleBoy is wallowing, it spins its hat slowly, and bobs rarely.

If the time elapsed is ( 150%, 100% ], BubbleBoy is “angry” because it did not receive its food exactly before the time elapsed. The hat will not spin, and BubbleBoy will bob side to side, and once (quickly) in the opposite axis to simulate a sort of “twitching” to all this anger!

If the time elapsed is ( 100%, 85% ], BubbleBoy is eager to please. Hat tricks will be common, same as delightful bobbing. Depending on how much food/water BubbleBoy has, it may also hoola hoop!

7. Last part of Following the Expectation

Depending on when BubbleBoy was fed, if it was in ( whatever, 100 ], the expectation will be done. Essentially, BubbleBoy is a positive/eager thinker that believes it should always be fed before the elapsed observed time. What an attitude!

If it is in [ 85, 100 ), then the expectation will be kept.

To reformulate the expectation, the previous steps are executed on the collected data. Then, everything repeats!

What will be super interesting to see, in my opinion, will be when the discrepancies occur from past thought to present thought. It will be interesting to see which sensors fare better through that transformation.

It will also be interesting to see if this actually can work on an Arduino, and not in simulation. I created a simulated version of BubbleBoy in Processing recently:

The initial coding and testing will be done through this simulation, mainly because I already coded the Bayes Filter Algorithm (with random roulette) in Processing from 2009 Honors Summer Research. Plus, in Processing it is very simple to communicate to an Arduino through Firmata. I can read in the data from BubbleBoy through there.

Here’s BubbleBoy’s circuit diagram:

BubbleBoy’s original source code for the Arduino can be downloaded here!

Check out BubbleBoy in action in all of these videos!

Want more information about BubbleBoy? Click here to see all of my blog posts that mention BubbleBoy! And click here to see all the blog posts that mention Pinky.

After being at Stanford, I really realized that I extremely like AI and robotics. So, I have many robot projects going on all at one time. Here’s a list:

• Line following, maze navigating, AI robot
  • Using an Arduino and Processing
  • Started this project at Stanford (they funded it!)
  • 2 DC motors
  • 5 LDRs
  • Chassis is a cardboard and plastic beginners robot kit (bought at the ExplOratorium while at Stanford)
  • I need a gearbox!
• BubbleBoy
  • A robot that has fake emotions determined by the pushes of buttons and the LDR
  • Using Arduino and Processing
  • 2 Servos
  • 1 LDR
  • 2 Push buttons
  • Chassis is the older BubbleBoy – Pinky one I created
  • I need another Arduino – or an RBBB!
• MANOI AT01 -> Arduino
  • Transplanting my humanoid to the Arduino board
  • I need 2 or 3 Pololu micro serial servo boards – they can be controlled via a TXRX line, making it easy for the Arduino to control many servos
  • Will write software to control the servos in Processing (easy GUI!)
• Phoenix
  • Basically, my project for the year. *cough*ISEFhopefully*cough*
  • Uses much of the knowledge I attain from all projects and the Stanford EPGY Summer Institutes AI Program
  • Hospital bedside accompaniment
  • I’m purposefully lacking details here.

Some of the parts I need immediately in order to continue building are expensive though

But hey, there’s always Styrobots in my shop ready to be purchased!!

In the meantime, I’m still annotating and pulling all the details out of these books…

• Building Sociable Robots
• Probablistic Robotics
• AI Textbook from Stanford
• AI journal book from Stanford
• The Emotion Machine
• Intro to AI

I’m also compiling a huge blog post of over 1,000 pictures from Stanford

Soon after that, I’ll post pics of these projects =D

OMG YAY! This was the best day of school, ever. I think I was smiling 92.5% of the time, to be precise. I don’t understand though, how some people cry on a happy day?! Isn’t crying for bad things? Hmm.. anyway I left my yearbook at home, LOL, I was the only person without one. Woops! Well, the entire school year is worth waaaay more than a yearbook entry to me

As promised, a reflection post from elementary – highschool!

Junior Kindergarden (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – Weee! So much fun. I liked building stuff out of the wooden blocks.

Senior Kindergarden (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – Woohoo! I learned how to print on a line, I think. Well, I knew how to write and read before Kindergarden. Haha, I remember this:
Teacher: “You have to write a ‘D’ with a more of a point at the end”
Me: “But then it will tip over, if it has a point! It won’t be able to stand up on the line!”
I started gymnastics then … immediately fell in love with spinning around on the parallel bars!

Grade 1 (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – oOoOo This was quite fun. I most fondly remember counting to 100 by 5′s, for some reason! Still did gymnastics, in the elementary school that was on the opposite side of Shelburne, but it was fun! Also, I think it was this grade where a selected few went down to the library for typing lessons, and I was really good at it. The librarian was like “she’s a natural typer”. LOL, but I was using the computer a few years before this, so it was easy.

Grade 2 (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – I remember doing these math problems, and finishing them in a second. The question was raised as to whether I should skip a grade or not, however my parents decided against it as they wanted me to be more fun-oriented than mark-oriented. Mrs. Pugsley always kept insisting that she will eventually read one of my books one day. I had a ton of fun

Grade 3 (first half) (St.Benedict something something (aka: a religious school), Orangeville, ON) – Wooah. This school, I remember, was SO weird. They didn’t like me talking about Pokemon. I think they banned Pokemon cards too. The teachers were weird too, same with the books. I actually flipped through one of the books a few months ago, and it actually talked about adult issues. I was shocked, thank god I didn’t see that stuff in Grade 3!

Grade 3 (second half) (Laurel Woods Elementary School, Orangeville-ish (out on the R.R.’s), ON) – Wow, this school had so much land it was amazing. Plus, it was near one of the farms that had emu’s! It was so cool to always see them at lunch. I remember catching Mew on Pokemon, and trading lots of cards. Oh yeah, and being one of the fastest runners. First time I heard of Harry Potter. I remember trying to memorize the times tables, too. LOL. (I was so bad at them!)

Grade 4 (Roland Mitchener School, Ottawa, ON) – This school was amazing. It was a circle, with no walls. The computer lab was all macs. First time I heard about neopets. Track & Field was so much fun, I remember running so fast that my hat blew off and I didn’t care because I won the race by a lot. I won lots of red ribbons The pool noodle throw was so hilarious! Everyone thought I would throw it so far, but it didn’t even make it past the line LOL. That was really funny. I remember gymnastics being in the Earl of March High School gym. Reminded my of Dynamics, in Shelburne! This school was really cooool! My most fond memory is probably playing Pokemon with Mark, Tegan, and Chrispy. (I actually still stay in touch with Chrispy, she has been through A LOT, but is an amazing person).

Grade 5 (Hyland Heights, Shelburne, ON) – Back to my old school, Grade 5 was my favourite grade of all time. I got straight A+’s!!! I remember there was this math problem, and I solved it before everyone else did. It required a lot of thinking, back then. Earthkeepers was an amazing field trip, I hope to one day get all of the beads! I remember when Mr.Mac’s guitar string broke and flicked Adam in the face. Building a bridge out of toothpicks was so much fun… then seeing who’s could hold more weight was even more fun. Ours broke when I started jumping up and down because I was so happy. (LOL). I remember there was this game we invented, and it was really good. There were two chairs, and the point was to hit the chair with the ball. You could run with the ball, but if you were touched you had to give it to the other team. However, you could put the ball on the ground and roll it, and it wouldn’t matter. It was fast paced and LOTS of fun. At the end of the year, Mr.Mac gave me ‘The Bridge to Terrabithia’. I don’t think I read it, as I already knew the story… or maybe I did read it. I have no clue. Oh yeah! I remember liking using the computer for Excel spreadsheets. XD I was really Harry Potter crazy too, in Grade 5. I won a Nike Basketball signed by Q-mac for beating bullying. Go figure! I did gymnastics in Orangeville, as the club in Shelburne closed down.

Grade 6 (Hyland Heights, Shelburne, ON) – Grade 6 with Mrs Lemieux was interesting. I can say that I passed the D.A.R.E. course! even remember what it stands for. Drug Abuse Resistance Eductation. Every school in Ontario had to do this course. It was pretty cool, you get a lot of free stuff like pencils and erasers. And you got to see an OPP! Another memory from Grade 6 was the Air Band project. Me and Jenny did Shania Twain’s ‘UP!’ song, in Ottawa Senators jerseys. (That was when they were a good team). Gymn was lots of fun!

Grade 7 (a few weeks) (Hyland Heights, Shelburne, ON) – Was being bullied too much, had to leave.

Grade 7 (The Maples School, Orangeville, ON) – Wow, I get to go to a PRIVATE SCHOOL! No bullying! This school was pretty fun. I remember throwing a fit at the computer, after saying that I know everything about Powerpoint. The teacher asked me to do a quiz, and it was asking stupid questions about Outlook. Back then, Outlook was known for ALL of its viruses. It still is! I remember getting really high marks in Science. The only really horrible thing I remember was that there we all belonged to a mandatory dance club, after school. It was so lame! However, art class was really fun. They had functional paint brushes and paint, which amazed me compared to the other school. Also, there was a band. I chose the flute. I wasn’t really good at it as I couldn’t do the high notes, nor can I carry a tune. And I can’t do that thing where you inhale an exhale at the same time. Oh well! I still have my flute though. Most unfortunately, half-way through the year I had to quit gymnastics as I did a front tuck the wrong way, even though I told the coach I didn’t want to do it, and hurt my neck and back. Was fun while it lasted, and I DID get the back handspring down! I started playing more on the computer, designing webpages too. Actually, that Christmas I bought my first domain name, with Yahoo.

Grade 8 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) – Moving to Quebec, I thought it would be better, especially since it had such a big and profound history. It wasn’t. We had so much trouble with the language laws and everything. Getting a licensee for the cars was ridiculously hard and stressful. At school, I remember Computers class, Art, Home-Ec, and science with Miss Mallette. She was SO funny! Math was pretty funny, as the entire year we learned proportions like 500 different ways, which all equated to one basic way. I remember doing a problem that was a Mastermind Game (I really like Mastermind) and I was the only one that could solve it. I got the highest mark on the Jan. exam, too. In French, we were graded based on how well we played chess. That was really amazing. I met one of my best friends that year too, cutting like a dozen apple pies at the senior luncheon. I participated in Track & Field, won a bunch of 1sts in 200, 400, 800, long & triple jump. Also won team MVP at the sports banquet!

Grade 9 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) – Math with Miss Aubie was so much fun! Wow, I remember laughing so hard in that class, phoning in to win prizes on the radio, and a bunch of other crazy stuff. Robotics was extremely fun. We built robots using the Lego RCX 1.0 GUI programmer. Man, trying to understand that was so difficult and annoying. At home, I prgrammed my personal Lego RCX 2.0 in NQC. Way easier to understand! I began interning this year too! I couldn’t participate in Track though because of a torn hip flexor. Owch!

Grade 10 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) – I think this entire year revolved around me, always getting 90s in math, going down to low 20′s. This book was unbelievable. It was translated from french, and there were no notes in the book. Had I known the class was going to be taught similar to an independent studies course, I would have prepared myself more. Thank god it was a ministry exam, and I was able to get a 72 on it. However, there was something more important than stupid math “436″ in this grade. For Science Fair we, Anne-Marie and Olivia and I, created this machine that would compare the difference between a light sensor and a touch/weight sensor. (I used Hooke’s law to make the touch sensor into a weight sensor w/springs). Although it did win gold at both the Kuper Science Fair and the MRSTF, what I learned from it was not the science. There was a big dispute over who would be going to the regionals. Me being the leader wanted both to have an equal opportunity to succeed … so if one had a question, I would make sure both heard the answer. I remember one day sitting in the library when one of the members just started really being mean towards the other. I couldn’t control it so I ran out of the library, and just my luck one of the science teachers was there and was able to calm them down. We still couldn’t settle the dispute, so we had to have a meeting with the school psychologist. After that, the decision was made that a panel will be set up and the best person that presents the project will represent it at the regionals. I always remember being asked ‘who do you want to go’ and I would always answer this person. Thank goodness the other person went to regionals though, because the person mentioned before became extremely mean after. It really showed me that some people are only in it for the rewards. The person that went was in it because it was fun. We had a great time, we had GREAT judges, and walked away with a McGill and Polytech award. And, a gold medal. Even though it was stressful (no sleep for 1 week) – I have ‘Robotics’ on my grad ring to remember it. It was fun, and I really learned A LOT about it. I really have a feeling that it will help me in the future. In grade 10 I was in the ‘Advanced Robotics’ class, only me, and I learned Java and php/mySQL. It was a lot of fun! I couldn’t do track though because of my fainting.

Grade 11 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) -It’s the last year! Again, always failing failing failing math. I felt hopeless! But, thankfully, I was given a break and put into the science program even though my low marks in math last year. The first term, in retrospect, looked boring. Maybe it was. I remember having really good time management at the beginning of the year. I failed the Career Choice test (LOL). Term 2 was eventful. We got a new Physics teacher, who is now my inspiration to work at the JPL designing martian robots, and the class was really fun. Oh yeah! In term 2 I also went to the MIT Splash. That was SO much fun. I will never forget the Advanced Java class. Again this term I failed the Career Choice test (LOL). Term 3 was insanely fun. A new computer class was created, and I was able to learn more and work on new projects. For instance, Robbie the Robot. This was also the term where I wagered getting 75′s to work on this project, and hopefully win bigtime at the science fair. MRSTF really went downhill. I had judges that had no clue what I was saying. I don’t mean the vocabulary was too big, I mean they didn’t understand English completely. Apple lent me a big display, so I could make the interface bigger. Everything was shiny, and Robbie could have a long conversation with you. I was even asked by one of the big cheese’s if I can actually test it on autistic children in time for provincials. I of course said yes, as one of the potential uses of Robbie is to aid autistic children. I have no clue what happened, but they apparently did not like it. The comments that I received were very positive, however there were others that said that there was no innovation, that it was all money. I know it’s out of the ordinary, but there are people, or more precisely, GIRLS, that can program AND do graphic design. I guess they never saw a computer science project that had flashy colours and nice graphics. Whatever. I’m flattered by that judge’s vileness, because obviously the display was so glamorous he couldn’t focus on the project. The Apple community really likes Robbie the Robot. So, after I was pretty much heartbroken that night I got the silver medal (my goal was to get to ISEF, or at the very least Provs then CWSF). Pretty much a slap in the face. Also, they stole our ‘Support Our Troops’ sticker off of our car, crumpled my certificate, and originally lost the comments. At least I unveiled that not all the parts of MRSTF are fair for Kuper, next year. I hope they seriously kick butt and win some good stuff next year. But, the most important part was that I didn’t give up. I started working on my next robot project (Pinky aka BubbleBoy) that night. Term 4 went by soooo slowly. In computers I had fun with the Arduino, though! In Physics we had to build a Rube Goldberg machine, which was REALLY fun until the part where it didn’t work. In any case, the project is donated to the school now. I can only hope that maybe they will start a team to participate in the competition at Perdue University each year (there is a high school section for the project). In Chemistry, redox reactions in basic solutions makes me insane. I better figure it out soon, though! I think one of the biggest disappointments of the whole year was that I got laryngitis right before the track meet. I actually practiced and trained for the 400 and 800. Oof! That really SUCKED! I really wish I could have ran. Grr! I’m still angry that I missed it. On the last day, we went to Chez Cora’s for breakfast. To be honest, I never heard of this whole ‘Eat out for Breakfast’ thing. Why don’t people want to eat Fruit Loops at home? Anyway, my mom mentioned to me that the Lakeshore duckrace would be there, and it really was. It was cool, since the school paid for the tickets. A few years ago my family always bought lots lots lots of tickets, but we never knew who won! It got so annoying, I think it’s riggedz0rz. Anyway, for breakfast I had hot chocolate (drank it until I felt that I was having too much milk — lactose intolerant), and tried to figure out the menu. They said that they had pancakes, but they didn’t!! Instead, I had a ‘crepe’. Or, as I pronounce it, ‘crap’. ROFL. It tasted so bad. I didn’t have it with the bananas or chocolate though, because that didn’t sound too appetizing to me. It’s a big meal for breakfast though! Almost like having a meal at supper. At least we got to support the hospital though, and take a picture with a duck. I think I’ll stick with my Fruit Loops. When we got back, I was pretty much lost.. so I went to French class where the teacher tried to steal my duck :O then I went to the computer lab. Watched a crazy movie with flying cars and an Anthrax alarm… and a mix of JFK’s speeches with other pres’ to make a message. It occurred to me then that I’ll actually be celebrating the 4th of July in California!! OMG!! I can’t wait, really, I can’t. Finally I won’t look like a weirdo on the 4th in all red white and blue. I think though this will mean I will miss the Boston Pops on TV. Shucks, but still, celebrating is so much more fun than wishing we were on the Charles river on our boat watching the fireworks and listening to the 1812 overture. (If we were to move to MA, we would bring our boat with us (which is currently in Pickering, ON — and I miss it). The river is so breathtaking…). I finally got a 100% on a Math test, AND passed a Career Choice test (with an 84) O_O. Pretty cool. I gave Styrobots to several of my teachers, hopefully they will remember me? I really hope so, because most of them inspired me, LOTS! I feel so bad though, one of them that I gave to one of my favouritest teachers didn’t work. So, now that Styrobot just looks cool instead of ‘looks cool and moves’. The last day was the best day, ever! Oh yeah, my community service totalled to ~55 hours. BAM!

Woohoo! So, that took a good 2 hours away from studying. I’m gonna go and play soccer now. I’ll post pictures of the last day maybe later.

Oh yeah, and just to confirm the answer to the question that everyone is asking: No, I have no clue where I’m going. No clue where I’m moving, but I know that it will be within North America. We’ll see what happens after the Stanford trip. And, yes, compared to other moves, it is less stressful because you have NO IDEA where you’re going, but you know you have to go somewhere so you’ll just end up wherever you end up. w00t!

And the real reason that I didn’t apply to CEGEP was because I didn’t have the $30 on hand for the application fee. But, I wouldn’t want to go to CEGEP anyway.
HAPPY SUMMER

~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday

So, today I really started to make these Styrobots for 10 of the people that have inspired & helped me. I was painting them before-ish, which was good because I wasn’t leaving it to the last minute… right. I should have done the soldering first, and the painting last. xD I started working on them at 7ish, went to do some HW at 7:30. Came back to the Styrobots at 9, and worked until 12. Then, did more of my English essay until 2ish, which leaves me here. (And I just got really scared out of my mind because I heard a weird noise, LOL)

Here’s pictures of all the Styrobots:

Although the supplies for the Styrobots cost the usual ~$39, and that money could have been used to raise ~$200 for my Stanford Trip, I think it was extremely worth it! These are the people that got me into this 3 week program, and it’s going to be really fun! Like, I look forward to it every second of everyday now. How could I not make these Styrobots for them? Besides, it’s a great way to remember someone, in my opinion! I’ll be posting the pictures of the 10 Styrobots tomorrow, since we get out early.

Anyway… YAY LAST DAY OF SCHOOL TOMORROW!

And what better way to end with than achieving my goal from 1 year ago of getting 100% on a math test! Woohoo! (Finally!)

~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday

This year is almost over!!!

It’s been a long one, and I can’t wait to celebrate (a tiny bit). Save the real celebration till after exams, though! I’ll make a gigantor reflection post on Friday. (That way I can look at it in 5 years and have a good laugh, hopefully!)

I’d love to go to a public tour at the JPL while I’m in Cali!

I wonder if Apple has tours of its buildings…

(GEEZ Erin, such a boring blog post!)

I was studying….working…programming! ^^

I’ll skip the terribly boring stuff and get to the point(s)
- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – track practice
- Spent Friday in Ottawa ^^
- Half of Saturday I soldered stuff
- Sunday I programmed in a GUI & went biking in mud with a friend
- Monday I am watching the Habs Homework I’ll do after

There was an extremely good day at school last week… we get to make a Rube Goldberg machine for Physics!! This is SO cool it’s unbelievable to have this opportunity. I’m still in awe, and verrry excited to start working with the wood with our team! Sure… our team may go overboard for a simple simple machine combination contraption … but when will the chance of building a Rube Goldberg machine come around again? ;P

What I am working on now is getting my LCD to display a custom screen that I drew out on paper. What the problem appears to be is that it can’t handle many characters… I have 3 custom characters… I FINALLY got the 3rd line to work, so now I have to figure out the 4th line. It’s really annoying. I’ll figure out, somehow, how to cut down the amount of info/characters that has to be displayed.

Additionally, I’m working on making a SQLite database interface for conversation links and language models. Once I get it working, I’ll be linking it up with Robbie. You can then imagine all the possibilities with regards to the different language models that will be downloadable! I’m thinking a gigantor mental math mini-game one…

My fingers on my right hand are insane… thumb- raw’ish from soldering. index- has something wrong with it as I can’t lift it middle- a chunk of skin is missing because I unplugged my magsafe the wrong way… ring- my grad ring is ALWAYS falling off pinky- sprained a bit, from … I have no clue o_o

That’s all for now. I like how next year’s FIRST robotics is going to be completely different, with the new WPI programmer software and all! 802.11n will be great for ANNs too. I hope I am lucky enough to take part in FIRST next year!

Trying to get it all to work out was pretty a pretty intense thought process. At least, it seemed that way relative to a Friday. Relative to a Monday morning, the thought process could be described as easy. The way Bubble Boy (lol) will rock back and forth, and from side to side is that there will be two servos embedded into the side of the bottom ball. On the servo horns will be string, which will be attached to a paperclip. From there, the paperclip plugs easily into the cross on the top ball.

The reason why I chose paperclips rather than anything else is because it allows more movement. For example, if the top ball moves to the left, the back and forth ones will not constrain this movement. Pretty neat, eh! I'll probably strengthen the cross tomorrow, after I replace the elastic string I used.

This brings me to another point. There isn't much string around, so the first thing I saw, I grabbed. Elasticy string. I thought it would probably work out, but it didn't. Tomorrow I'll replace it with bunchels of thread, or yarn - depending on what mood I am in. (Yarn is bigger - thread is smaller).

These photos show the progress of the process.

During the weekend, keep an eye out for:
- Blog post about Autism & Robots & Robbie
- Blog post (hopefully) about a working Bubble Boy
- YouTube video (hopefully) about Bubble Boy
- Blog post about a very fun Physics lab

Happy Friday night BUBBLE BOY!

Lucky for me – it was the EXACT colour I envisioned!

I also made the bottom part better, so it wouldn’t topple over that easy.

Enjoy the pics!

Hooray!

Basically what I did today was familiarized myself with how to program the servos with the Arduino more, and I made the two styrofoam balls interlock. This was done buy cutting an ‘x’ into both. On the bottom one, the x was concave. On the top one, the x was convex. They have some ability to move side to side and front to back. Tomorrow that functionality will improve after I trim it up a bit.

Hooray for virtual logbooks! ^_^

It was pretty fun. My soldering has gone waaaaaay downhill though. Hopefully I’ll get more practice in soon. Arduino and ArtBot contest entries are due in the end of April, so I better get moving. My plan is to make a new Robbie, incidentally called Pinky. I’ll somehow find a small microphone and speaker, and embed it in a physical pink snowman.

The coolest part about the ArtBot contest is that, if I am accepted, I’ll be able to go to Ireland on my birthday. I’m Irish, so that’s quite a huge ordeal! <:D

-> Oh, I received my comments today. And a crumpled certificate. Nice. Well, the comments were all positive, even the two in French.

I checked to see what the science fairs in Mass are like – they have a panel of professional judges. So I need not worry for the future!

BubbleBoy (aka: Pinky)

(2007-08 Grade 11)

• Bubble Boy Finished
  Video
• Friday Night MANOI! (Replaced by Bubble Boy, again)
  Bubble Boy works in all directions!
• Video of BubbleBoy WORX
  Video
• Bubble Boy WORX!
  And so it works!
• Friday Night MANOI – replaced by BUBBLE BOY!
  Inserted one servo and controlled it via the Arduino!
• Colouring Pinky
  Gotta make robots look nice!
• The Commencement of Pinky
  I came up with the Pinky idea, and started to build it. The design idea varied later on

Robbie the Robot

(2007-08 Grade 11)

• Robbie the Robot (2/2)
  Video
• Robbie the Robot (1/2)
  Video
• Robbie the Robot’s webpage
  Home of the application I created for Mac OS 10.5 that can have a human-machine conversation, vocally

Science Fair 2007

(2006-07 Grade 10)

• Building the Robot
• Building the Robot 2
• Painting the Robot
• Robot Demonstration

Dancing Mickey

(2005-06 Grade 9)

• Center of Balance Determined!
  Determined the center of balance! –Now time to decorate!
• Dancing Mickey
  Decoration finished, and now there is a Dancing Mickey!!

Flippin’

(2005-06 Grade 9)
Flippin’ was created for a robotics contest in grade 9 at my school. It whupped the other robots, and deemed the best award for logic. Here are the vids!

• Flippin’s Basics
  The basics of Flippin’.
• Weightlifting
  Testing Flippin’ with the usual weight of an RCX.
• Flippin’ Runs
  Testing Flippin’ again
• Flippin’ did as planned!
  Flippin’ sent the other robot speeding into the wall after a quick brawl. (LOL!)
• Flippin’ Won Another Brawl
  Sending the other robot crashing into Michelle!
• Stalemate
  Stalemate. They had a good chance to attack, but they didn’t.
• Bad Timing… but we still won! Lol!
  Their wheel fell off!

I have made more, however these are the ones that I have videos of.