ROBOTS DREAMS

Robo-IRT Makes Controlling the i-SOBOT a Breeze

As much as we’re devoted to the larger humanoid robots, we have to admit that they’re a bit expensive. At the same time, we love the lower cost robots like the TOMY i-SOBOT and the WowWee Robosapien types. But their remote controls are frequently complex and difficult to use, and editing a robot program usually turns out to be an exercise in frustration.

The best way to get around the remote control/programability challenge has been the free RoboDance software application. It’s loaded with great functionality and is extremely easy to use, even for a pure novice. It’s only drawback has been that you have to purchase a special IR transmitter to send the software commands to your robot. Thankfully a new, low cost transmitter, appropriately named “Robo-IRT” has hit the market.

The Robot Sleeps Tonight (Video)

A couple years ago, when the original Robosapien robot, created by Mark Tilden, went on sale, there were no third party products. Actually, at that point, no one outside of the WowWee Robotics labs knew enough about the robot to even begin hacking it, or creating new software and accessories for it.

We bought one, and are very glad we did. Figuring out how to control it from our PC was a significant challenge that taught us a lot, though we wouldn't want to try doing it from scratch again. Fortunately now there are several million of the popular Robosapien robots out there, along with other robots in the series, like the RoboRaptor, and RoboPet. And, there are a number of third party solutions for Robosapien fans and addicts to chose from.

USB IR Interface

For the dedicated hackers among us, and I suspect there are quite a few, the Hackaday website is worth checking out regularly - at least once a week, if not daily. For example, their featured hack on October 12 was "usb and udp using an avr", or, in simplier terms - a construction project for your computer to handle ir with a USB interface - something that might come in very handy if you wanted to control a robot from your PC....

PC Based Robosapien Control - Scripting Test Video

Here's the most recent test video. The test script included 18 commands plus embedded pause commands. The file is just over 1 megabyte.

Download robosambaian_scripting_test.wmv

Ps: The black object that comes into the left side of the screen at one point is my dog's nose.

Developing A PC Based Robosapien Remote Control - WYSIWYG

Once the basic architecture was up and running, and could consistently control my Robosapien via the USB-UIRT, it was time to do some design brainstorming. What was it that I liked about the RS remote control? What didn’t I like? What features would I really want to see in a remote control?

I had some clues. For example, one of the European university websites mentioned that RS has 9 degrees of freedom. How could I show that on the control, and make it easy to control each degree of freedom? In thinking about that problem, I recalled how the Japanese Robot Battle competitors program their robots. They typically have their left hand on the robot while their right hand is typing commands into the computer keyboard. They get immediate tactile feedback at a gut level.That lead me to the idea that the controller image should map directly to the Robosapien itself – hopefully on a 1:1 basis.

After some consideration, I came up with the following design guidelines:

• Intuitive – in other words, the remote control function should provide a WYSIWYG type of experience.
• Logical – it should make sense at a gut level and not require a lot of analysis to use.
• Shallow – as much as possible one button press should evoke the behavior you want. Control and multiple key strokes should be minimized.
• Facilitate – it should help the user and anticipate their desires, not get in the way of them.
• Toy – Robosapien, after all is said and done, is a toy. The remote control should be toy like in terms of design, colors, and experience.
• Fun – If it isn’t fun, then no one (including me) is going to use it for very long.

With that in mind, I came up with this design -

(click on the graphic for a full size image)

Once I had the controls laid out the way I wanted them, it was easy to combine the design with the operational software. Using Visual Basic 6, I imported the graphic layout into a form, then created an image array with enough elements for all the buttons. Each element in the image array overlays a button image in the graphic. This makes it easy to do things like tool tip text hints for mouse-overs.

The end result: an extremely easy to use, intuitive, fun to play with, remote control for my Robosapien.

When I have a chance over the next week or so, I’ll put together a post covering the details of using an image array to simulate graphic buttons in Visual Basic.