ROBERT, THE RECYCLER ROBOT
Vision
To produce the robot that encourage people to use the latest technology to save the earth in their life especially students.
Mission
To make the robot that not only can mimic the facial expressions and can communicate with people; the robot can also help human to save the earth by recycle the rubbish.
Objectives
1. To introduce students how science and technology can help to save the earth.
2. To expose students with existence of robots that can give a lot of advantages of human.
3. To build a robot that can have a conversation with people.
4. Robot that can do the human facial expression (Joy, Happy, Sad and Angry) with voice.
5. Robot that can help people to recycle the rubbish like paper, glass or bottle and drink cans by sorting them into respective categories.
Introduction about the project in detail
At the current rate of global population growth and consumption of resources, it appears clear that where we’re going to end: in a waste-covered Earth like that depicted in the movie WALL-E. There is ton of waste out there in the world.
Needless to say recycling is one of the most important things we can do to keep our planet sustainable.
Out ideas is to build the robot that can deliver the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’3R message to the students. To make the robot more lively and interactive, we have added the robot that can show the human expression like Kobian.
Introduction of the robot
1. Our robot, Robert, The Recycler Robot can talk to humans and mimic the human expression. Robert can also do the recycle job by sorting the different recycled items into different categories.
2. Description of the Robot
a. Our robot, Robert, can talk a simple words like Hello, Good, Thank you, Bravo, Fantastic, No, Crying Sound, Laughing Sound , OK, Good Bye, Have A Nice Day and Ouch Voice.
b. Robert can mimic the human expression by moving his two eyebrows and his mouth. He can mimic the human expression of happiness, sadness, Anger etc.
c. Robert also has the feeling of “hurt” when his skin on top of his head being hit by human.
d. Robert will say “Thank You” when he hears the clap sound.
e. Robert can sort rubbish like paper, glass, plastic drink cans and will give rewards once the items is recognized. Robert also will detect the size of the rubbish.
Synopsis of the project
(a) Background
We used ideas we got from many online sources such as Wikipedia, Youtube, Google, etc to get ideas for the design of the robot.
Researchers at Waseda University in Japan have unveiled Kobian, a humanoid robot that walks, talks and realistically expresses 7 human emotions.
To help to keep our planet clean, we have make our robot to help human to easily identified or sort out different kind of wastes like the recycle bin below. For example, paper, drinks can, glass and plastic bottles.
We also substituted the ideas from Kobian and recycle bin when building our robot, Robert, The Recycler Robot.
1) We have build the eyebrows which controlled by two NXT motors.
2) The mouth is controlled by another NXT Motor.
3) The voice of our robot is from the speaker from NXT.
4) Replace three different recycle bins into single intelligent sorting bin.
(b) Robot functionality
1) Our robot, Robert, The Recycler Robot, can mimic the human expression by moving his eyebrows and his mouth. The eyebrows are controlled by two NXT motors. The mouth is controlled by single NXT motor. With the combination of these motors, Robert can mimic the expression like happiness, anger, sadness and joyful.
2) We have made the robot that expresses the emotion as well as the facial expression by doing the conversation with him.
3) The Touch sensor is used to act like the skin of the robot. The robot will shout out “Ouch” Voice when being hit by human.
4) The Sound Sensor will act like the ear of the robot. The robot will say “Thank You” when he hears the clap sound at the end of our conversation.
5) The robot is able to detect different kind of rubbish like paper, glass, plastic and drink cans. The robot also able to detect the size of the rubbish.
6) The robot is able to detect the motion of the human when come closer.
7) The robot is able to dispense the reward for those who has help to bring in the recycle items.
(c) Uniqueness and interactive behavior
1) Our robot, Robert, The Recycler Robot, can communicate with human.
2) He will mimic the facial expression and emotion like human during the conversation.
3) Robert will shout when being hit or touch by human.
4) At the end of the conversation, Robert will politely say “Thank You” to the audience.
5) Our robot can detect different kind of rubbish and the size of it.
6) Our robot able to dispense the reward.
Designing and Building Process
(a) Concept and Implementation
(b) Brainstorming and solution to the problem
1. To mimic the human expression, the most important part is the eyebrows of the robot. The eyebrows must close to each other in order to mimic the facial expression. This is one of the reasons why we are using the two gears.
2. Another reason why the gears are used is to slow down the movement of the eyebrows so that the robot can show the “emotion” when expressing his facial expression.
3. To have our robot more “Lively”, we have added Touch Sensor (Skin of the robot) and also the Sound Sensor (Ear of the Robot).
4. As for the recycler part, most challenging part is the reward dispenser. As we use candy as the reward, it is very difficult to design the dropper. Finally, we have come out with the solution as shown below.
(c) Engineering and stability of the structures
1) Two motors are used to control the eyebrows. The angle beam is used to act like the eyebrow. The gear with the ratio of 12:36 or 1:3 is used to control the movement of the eyebrow.
2) Another motor is used to control the movement (e.g. open and close) of the mouth of the robot.
3) The Touch Sensor is attached with the axles and connectors to the top of the robot. It acts like the skin of the robot. When the Touch Sensor is pressed or touched, it will make the “Ouch” Sound; move his mouth and the eyebrows.
4) The Sound Sensor is connected to act like the ear of the robot. When the robot hears the louder clap sound at the end of the conversation, it will say “Thank You”.
5) As for Recycler, we are using the cupboard, metal frame, and LEGO parts together in order to make it the structure stable.
Programming
(a) Concept
1) The Sound Blocks are used to act like the robot can talk and express emotion like human.
2) The movement of the mouth is controlled by Loop Count. We can change the number of movement of the mouth by changing the “Count” times.
3) The Wait Block is used when doing the conversation with human. The script is pre-written so that the robot will have smooth conversation with the robot.
The Wiring and functionality of the input / output of the NXTs are listed in the table below.
Facial NXT
Port
|
Input /
Output |
Functionality
|
B
|
Motors
(Output) |
Move the
eyebrow (Left). |
A
|
Motor
(Output) |
Move the
mouth of the Robot. |
C
|
Motors
(Output) |
Move the
eyebrow (Right). |
1
|
Touch
Sensor (Input) |
Trigger
the Robot when pressed. |
2
|
Sound
Sensor (Input) |
Trigger
the Robot when the Sound Level reach the limit. |
3
|
Not Used
|
|
4
|
Not Used
|
Recycler NXT
Port
|
Input /
Output |
Functionality
|
B
|
Motors
(Output) |
Gate
Closer. |
A
|
Motor
(Output) |
Reward
Dispenser |
C
|
Motors
(Output) |
Rubbish
Sweeper |
1
|
Ultrasonic
Sensor (Input) |
Size
Detector |
2
|
Color
Sensor (Input) |
To detect
the color of the rubbish (cube). |
3
|
Touch
Sensor |
As start
to start the sorting process. |
4
|
Ultrasonic
Sensor (Input) |
Size
Detector |
(b) Brainstorming and solution to the problem
1) Due to limitation of the memory, mostly occupied by the Sound files, we only can download one program in the NXT. To overcome this limitation, we have make the facial expression, human emotion, conversation, the reaction of the “Skin” of the robot, the reaction of the “Ear” of the robot into one conversation script.
2) My Block is used to simplify the movement of the eyebrows, the Sound and also the movement of the mouth.
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