Pookie dawgy doo

By Emma Fjeld Brovold and Helene Bye Humberset

1) Animatronics

We chose animatronics because we can make something fun to work with. Our idea is to make a dog that can follow simple commands based on voice activation. We want to focus less on walking and more on the interaction between human and robot.

2) Goals

The goal of this project is to make a robot dog that functions as a show dog. We will use speech recognition to make the robot recognize our voice commands. Our goal commands are:

1. sit
2. lay down
3. paw
4. dance
5. secret handshake
6. stay - different words - release word

We plan to optimize the dogs ability to recognize the commands and make the movements in the dog smooth, so it seems as life-like as possible.

Inspiration from:

1. A toy dog [^1]. We like the appearance of the dog, and the fact that it can do tricks. This dog bases its tricks on pressure sensors, while we will use voice commands.
2. A 3D-printed robotic dog [^2]. This inspired the electronics and 3D-printing part of our project.

3) Sketch

Scope of the project:

We will use the tinyML arudino kit to process the commands and control the motors and led displays. The arduino will be located in the body of the dog, and we plan to hide the power supply in the dog's leash. Our plan is to use 10 smaller servos, one for the head, one for the tail, and eight to give the legs 2DOF. We would like to use the led displays as eyes to make the robot seem more life like, with functions like blinking and looking around.

Our plan is to start with connecting the servos in 2DOF-legs. We imagine it will be helpful to start with one leg, and get an overview of how the servos should move in relation to each other. When we are satisfied with the leg's isolated movement, we will connect the legs to the body, and focus on the body moving as a whole.

We imagine there might be some trial and error with recognizing the voice commands as well. Therefore, our plan is to start by making the dog recognize short, simple commands in a quiet environment. Then we will introduce some background noise, and say the command words in a sentence, to see if it is able to identify the commands.

4) Bill of materials (BOM)

5) Plan

[^1]: Moji. URL: https://lekekassen.no/moji-den-kjaerlige-labradoodle-valpen-interaktiv-bamse-med-lyd-og-bevegelser-18207?utm_term=&device=c&matchtype=&location=9192944&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22519367209&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlcvr2pakkAMVi0eRBR2iMhXLEAQYASABEgK0GPD_BwE [^2]: Build a simple 3D dog robot and control it. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhUvoV5XyRg