Introduction:
The world is constantly changing. Its technology is rapidly growing and making today’s computers obsolete. Everybody is tired of working so hard just to get enough money to pay the bills and the maid they hired to keep their houses clean. But what if something miraculously came to help this people out? How would you feel if when you arrived to your house after work with only your voice you’d have your meal and your kid’s homework done?
We are a group of five college students with the aims of helping to create the ultimate Robot ever seen in Puerto Rico. In an example of its different functions, the robot will be able to follow spoken commands as well as to interact with it and read your children’s homework.
This project started a couple of trimesters ago. A Capstone Team created the robot, which can move automatically and manually with the aids of a computer or a remote control. Another team created a Voice Recognition System for the robot, which interacts with voice commands. Other two teams worked on a hand and head modules.
The Capstone Team that created the robot was originally asked to design a humanoid robot that realized a series of task depending on the operation mode. Its main purpose was for educational use or to interact with production lines. This project involved the integration of mechanical designs, electrical knowledge, computer interfacing, and computer programming. A lot of research and investigation was done in order to develop a robot that kept all the construction and motion requirements.
The Capstone Team that worked with the Voice Recognition System defined it as a form of verifying commands to perform certain tasks. Using this technology the robot performs a series of up to 25 commands responsible of basic motions and functions. This system was created to have enough capacity in order for it to be improved in the future. The Voice Recognition System must control the robot by applying basic motions (forward, reverse, etc.) and other different functions. The source that makes this happen is the Voice Extreme Toolkit, which offers the necessary tools to achieve the past project. The toolkit is used to communicate with the Eyebot to perform the given commands.
The Capstone Team that created the Head was originally asked to design an animated head able to express human emotions. The main human emotions it had to express where happiness, sadness, anger and surprise, and neutral expression. It also had to be able to manipulate external commands.
Now our goal is to integrate all this different projects to the original robot in addition to create and design a vision and obstacle avoidance system.
