My BlueStamp Experience
Hello! My name is Isaias and I am a rising senior at Cristo Rey New York High School. I came to BlueStamp to see if I have any interest in engineering. My starter project is the Exploding Star Color Organ Kit. I choose the Exploding Star Color Organ Kit because I love music and this kit lights up to music and to other sounds. My main project is a Voice-Controlled Robot that moves to my commands.
Starter Project: Exploding Star Color Organ Kit
How It Works:
The Exploding Star Color Organ Kit is a kit that lights up when it hears any type of sound. The kit is powered by a 9V battery with LED lights, transistors, IC chips, potentiometers, capacitor, and resistors. The LED lights will begin to light up when the ultra-sensitive electret microphone receives audio signal. Those signals then become electrical signals that get filtered by the capacitors on the PC board. After that the signals go to the 4 transistors that then amplify the signals and send it to the IC chips. The 555 IC chip then sends a timed sequence signal to the 4017 IC chip that then send a time sequence to the other 3 transistors switches to signal when the transistors switches should turn on the red, green, and the yellow color LEDs. I also have 2 potentiometers that controlled the sensitivity of the microphone and the frequency of the LED lights.
Challenges:
A challenge in this project was soldering. This was my first time ever soldering anything so I had to go back and solder some joints that were not soldered all the way because if I did not my project would not work all the way.
Link To Starter Project: http://www.electronickitsbychaneyelectronics.com/prodinfo.asp?number=C6818
Main Project: Voice Controlled Robot
A voice controlled robot is robot that moves to your command. If you were to say move forward the robot would move forward. I choose this as my main project because my parents bought me a voice controlled R2-D2 when I was a little kid and I was always interested in how it worked. So I decide this to learn how my R2-D2 worked.
First Milestone :Getting My Wheels to Spin by Using Arduino and Servo Motors
My first milestone was learning how to make my wheels spin so that I could start to grasp an idea of how coding works and some codes that I may need to use in my code for my robot. The code that I learned to use to make my wheel spin is a for loop. A for statement is used to repeat a block of statement in curly brackets. A for statement has increment and decrements. The increments and decrements help me because it makes my servo go to a certain degree and when the servo hits that degree my servo will then start to decrement This can later be beneficial to learn because it can be used to make my robot go forwards and backwards.
Challenges:
Understanding what a for loop does and how it works. This was my first time doing any type of coding in my life.
First Milestone Video
Second Milestone: Getting My EasyVR to Register My Voice Commands
My second milestone was to get my EasyVR to register my commands because this is a crucial part in my project. I tackled this project was by searching up how to program my EasyVR to register my commands. The first thing I had to do was download the EasyVR Commander so that I could then start putting in my commands. The next step was getting my EasyVR to connect to COM 3 because I am a Windows user. After that I started to add my command by using the add command function in the EasyVR program. After I add my commands I trained my commands to register to my voice by using the train command function in the EasyVR program. Then I generated my code by using the generate my code function button in the EasyVR program. The way I was able to transport my commands to the Arduino UNO was by using the EasyVR shield because the shield is an adapter board that connect the EasyVR to the Arduino.
Challenges:
A challenge I faced was getting my EasyVR to move to my different group commands. The problem was within my code even though the EasyVR generated my code it did not know how to go to different groups because you had to do that yourself. So the way I was able to fix this was going to my case group lines and inserting when to change to the next group by putting it in command the would detect when I said this specific command I wanted it to change groups.
Second Milestone Video
Final Milestone: Voice Controlled Robot Working
My final milestone was showing my entire robot working. The way I built my chassis was by laser cutting my wood and inserting the holes where I wanted my chassis to hold things. My major components are the EasyVR and the Continuous Servo Motors.The EasyVR is what registers my voice and is what then tells my servos to move. My entire robot is powered by a 5V rechargeable battery. A modification I made in my design was adding a ball bearing wheel to keep my chassis stable. Another modification I made was adding a speaker so that it would when it heard my command. My biggest challenge that I overcame was coding. The reason why I was having so much trouble with coding was because I had no idea how to code. I was able to write a code for my robot by looking at other peoples code and how they did theirs.
Challenges:
A challenge I had was my robot to registering to some of my codes. The reason it was having difficulties was because the bigger the word the harder it was for it to register my commands. So what I did to fix this was by making my words simpler.
Final Milestone Video
My BlueStamp Experience Reflection
My time at BlueStamp was a fun, hard, and difficult journey. My time at BlueStamp was amazing because of the hands on experience that I got here. The hard part was having to do longing hours of searching for solutions to get my robot to work and understanding code.Another thing that annoyed me was the many times our instructors told us to google for the solution. One major thing that I can really take from this experience is that all I need to do make my own robot is GOOGLE and my brain.
Pictures of Ben Short for Benjamin
Helpful Links to Make Your Own Voice Controlled Robot:
Build of Materials: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17uESqaRnNPdkeSDVwR0grkUUN-91TRoQyxACfG_TIXU/edit#gid=1950561691
Code:BENS_CODE
Download for Arduino Program: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software
Download for EasyVR Commander Program: http://www.veear.eu/downloads/
Manual to Understand Errors in EasyVR: http://www.veear.eu/files/EasyVR%203%20User%20Manual%201.0.13.pdf