Toddler Bot 3000 by Adam Fujita. Voice Activated Educational Parenting Tool!!

Toddler Bot 3000 from Stories For Paloma on Vimeo.

The Toddler Bot is a simple device created to illustrate how proper parenting could be practiced. This bot is made from a Parralax Shield Bot with a Electret mic from Ada Fruit. The ides of this device is that when you yell at it it will back up and run a way from you and if you speak in softer sweeter tones it would approach you.

Not unlike children of all ages they dont respond well to being yelled at.

This is a speculative design tool. Im aware that there are lots of different parenting techniques that are appropriate and at times necessary but Im just trying to illustrate the dangers of one.

This project could go in many other directions ( no pun intended) and I look forward to using the kit in other ways.

Thanks for checking this tutorial out!!

I wanted to show the entire 360 views of the Toddler Bot 3000 and in all the following steps you will see all the process.

I began by opening the Shield Bot package and simply broke down all the parts to get the build going. There are lots of parts in this great kit and I only used about half of the small hardware for this kit. Its really exciting to have all of these parts for future builds. Here is the link to the Paralax website so you can purchase the kit if you need. You could piece together your own kit for much cheaper if you chose. I would have liked to do the same and to have built my own chasis if i could but for time purposes I bought the kit.

https://www.adafruit.com/products/749

I also had to purchase an extra Arduino Uno R3 board that is not included with the Parralax kit. Here is the link to but it down below.

https://www.adafruit.com/products/50

With this kit and your own Arduino module, you can follow the Robotics with the Board of Education Shield for Arduino lessons with over 40 hands-on activities.

Learning to program your robot's Arduino BrainCalibrating the robot's continuous rotation servo motorsUsing lights and speakers for status indicatorsAssembling the robotPreprogrammed navigationUsing touch-switches to navigate by contact with objectsUsing phototransistors to navigate by lightUsing non-contact infrared sensors to measure distance and avoid or follow objectsThe original Robotics with the Boe-Bot text for the BASIC Stamp microcontroller has enjoyed worldwide popularity with teachers and hobbyists, and has been translated into seven languages. Author Andy Lindsay revised his work for the Arduino community, and Parallax Inc. is making it available as a free, online tutorial at http://learn.parallax.com/ShieldRobot.Kit Contents: Board of Education Shield PCBHigh-quality aluminum robot chassis, continuous rotation servos, and wheelsBoe-Boost ModuleAll the electronic components and sensors needed for the Robotics activitiesAll the assembly hardware needed (nuts, screws standoffs)Parallax Screwdriver

These are the tools I used...

Scissors: Large and small

Screw drivers. 3 sizes of phillips. Extra small, small and medium.

Small needle nose pliers.

Pencil

Power drill with 16th drill bit.

Sandpaper 320 grit. (not photographed)

Soldering Iron (not photographed)

Laser Cutter (not photographed)

I bought this sweet little guy. The Electret Mic from adafruit is a solid mic. I have a stock image from the Adafruit site and my image after I soldered it together. Heres the link to buy...

https://www.adafruit.com/products/1063

IMG 2624 from Stories For Paloma on Vimeo.

Add an ear to your project with this well-designed electret microphone amplifier. This fully assembled and tested board comes with a 20-20KHz electret microphone soldered on. For the amplification, we use the Maxim MAX4466, an op-amp specifically designed for this delicate task! The amplifier has excellent power supply noise rejection, so this amplifier sounds really good and isn't nearly as noisy or scratchy as other mic amp breakouts we've tried!This breakout is best used for projects such as voice changers, audio recording/sampling, and audio-reactive projects that use FFT. On the back, we include a small trimmer pot to adjust the gain. You can set the gain from 25x to 125x. That's down to be about 200mVpp (for normal speaking volume about 6" away) which is good for attaching to something that expects 'line level' input without clipping, or up to about 1Vpp, ideal for reading from a microcontroller ADC. The output is rail-to-rail so if the sounds gets loud, the output can go up to 5Vpp!Using it is simple: connect GND to ground, VCC to 2.4-5VDC. For the best performance, use the "quietest" supply available (on an Arduino, this would be the 3.3V supply). The audio waveform will come out of the OUT pin. The output will have a DC bias of VCC/2 so when its perfectly quiet, the voltage will be a steady VCC/2 volts (it is DC coupled). If the audio equipment you're using requires AC coupled audio, place a 100uF capacitor between the output pin and the input of your device. If you're connecting to an audio amplifier that has differential inputs or includes decoupling capacitors, the 100uF cap is not required.The output pin is not designed to drive speakers or anything but the smallest in-ear headphones - you'll need an audio amplifier (such as our 3.7W stereo amp) if you want to connect the amp directly to speakers. If you're connecting to a microcontroller pin, you don't need an amplifier or decoupling capacitor - connect the OUT pin directly to the microcontroller ADC pin.

The Shield bot has a very comprehensive guide of instructions that are included with it but there was one small issue when I was building and that was that one of the nylon spacers that is included and SHOULD just slip right in like the other three did to help separate and keep the Arduino Uno and the Parallax board apart, didn't fit. This kit has gone through many iterations and things have changed. I sent a message to Adafruit to let them know. I solved this issue by sanding the piece down a bit to make it fit. Ive included the images of the the sanding.

Here is the instruction pdf for building this bot. Its very detailed and easy to follow for the most part.

http://learn.parallax.com/ShieldRobot

bot14 from Stories For Paloma on Vimeo.

Like I had mentioned before I wanted to do as much custom work as possible on this project.Ig I wasn't a full time grad student I would have. I at least got some custom wheels made. I made a simple Adobe Illustrator file of the hexagonal wheels. I wanted them to be hex so there would be a rumbling and wonky movement to the bot like a toddler would have.

The pieces came out well. I sanded the corners down a bit and just used rubber bands from mu broccoli bunches that wrapped perfectly around their edges. I had to drill out the 5 hols and I used the X cross pieces that came on the servos.

Im not sure what other people have used the X's for but they were the perfect thing for me to attach to the acrylic wheels.

Ive included the illustrator file it is along side the images above.

Many of you may not have access to a laser cutter. Im aware of that. This step can be avoided by just using the wheels that are included in the kit. However laser cutters are more and more common. PLaces like Fab Labs have them and for instance in New York City where I live you could go to a place like Fabberz to have the work done.

FABberz
www.fabberz.com/

FABberz offers affordable laser cutting, engraving, large format printing, and design services in Manhattan.1 Google review · Write a review · Google+ page 580 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10019 (646) 781-9448

You could also cut wheels out of wood or cardboard as a replacement.

Heres a quick video of my wheels getting cut.

IMG 2604 from Stories For Paloma on Vimeo.

More pathetic attempt at customizing the Toddler Bot. I wanted at one point to make a furry cover for this bot. Then I had thought of buying a baby doll and just having the head attached to it. Then for purposes of ease and convenience I settled on making a cover out of poly styrene and cutting it out to create a carriage shell. Later on I attached a photo of baby Miley Cyrus, because who would want to yell at baby Miley Cyrus!!??

Attached in this step is the code for the Toddler Bot 3000. Also included in the Parallax Shield Bot kit are all the codes to test the circuit and the servos.

Im not gonna lie...my circuit is kindergarten complexity. I decided to highlight that but spray painting my circuit diagram on the mean streets of Bushwick Brooklyn. This is a simple setup of one cable to 3.3 volt (red) the Ground (black) and the Analog0. (yellow) The other wires in red and whit along the top are for the servos. Im not sure but I would like to believe this is the first and only mural painted on the streets of New York of a Parallax Board of Education with an Ada Fruit Electret mic. Please send me pics if you find another one!!

Thank you Montana Colors for making such great paint. Check out their site for more info http://www.mtncolors.com/