GONK (Generative OpenSource Neural Kompanion)
By Alan Aziz & Kasper André Meldre Bilet
1) Animatronics
We decided to make an animatronic for this project. An animatronic allows us to create a robot that can interact with humans through emotions. We are fascinated with this idea, and therefore, creating an Animatronic would fit well. It is also important for us that we make a robot that is easy for humans to understand and interact with. The robot should be simple in design and able to mimic human emotions.
2) Goals
The goal of this project is to implement harmony between robotics and AI. :Handshake emoji:. To accomplish this, we have these subgoals:
- Arm and torso movement
- Human recognition
- Conversation ability
Nice to have's!
- Mimicking human movements
- Display emotions
We plan to optimise:
- The camera vision of the robot to enable it to recognise humans.
- The conversation part of the robot to make it able to hold a proper conversation.
Video on a similar robot [^1]. We chose this example because of its similarity with our own idea/vision. It also had a wide variety of functions and incorporated both software, hardware and design.
Animated robot! [^2]. Overall idea of our project. Robots that feel alive.
An app that lets you have a conversation with ChatGPT using ElevenLabs for AI voice and Microsoft Azure TTS for transcribing the audio [^3]. This gave us the idea for the conversation function for our robot.
3) Sketch
The robot should be able to:
- Rotate two arms in a 2-degree freedom of movement (shoulder joint).
- Rotate its torso.
- Display emotions through an OLED display.
- Use a camera to detect humans.
- Use the microphone and speaker to converse
Legend
| Color | Description
| ---- | -----------
| Orange | Oled display
| Purple | Raspberry Pi Camera
| Blue | Raspberry Pi
| Green/Red | Dynamixel AX18
| Yellow | Small Microphone + Small Speaker
4) Bill of materials (BOM)
Create a table with the most important components for your setup.
| Item | Description | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dynamixel AX18 | 5 |
| 2 | Raspberry pi | 1 |
| 3 | Oled display | 1 |
| 4 | Raspberry Pi Camera | 1 |
| 5 | Mirophone [^4] | 1 |
| 6 | Small speaker [^5] | 1 |
| 7 | Soundcard [^6] | 1 |
5) Plan
Week 42 | Week | Description | Name | ---- | ----------- | ---- | 42 | Design shoulder joint | Kasper | | Yolov8 human classification | Alan | 43 | Joint control | Both | 44 | Setting up LLM to voice AI platform | Alan | | Script for detecting and processing human movements | Kasper | 45 | Designing a robot shell and putting it together | Both | 46 | Improving Design | Both
[^1]: I Made A CLEVER Mini Robot. URL: https://youtu.be/bPpk2lbAovk?si=z_a4dBifgMWUVmzD [^2]: Alonso Martinez's 3D-Printed Animated Robots!. URL: https://youtu.be/0vfuOW1tsX0?si=ye95coHOJl3hwksY [^3]: https://github.com/DougDougGithub/Babagaboosh [^4]: https://no.rs-online.com/web/p/microphones/2834516?gb=s [^5]: https://no.rs-online.com/web/p/miniature-speakers/1176044?gb=a [^6]: https://no.rs-online.com/web/p/raspberry-pi-hats-add-ons/8624884?gb=s