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tweetie-pi

Is a simple NodeJS app that uses the Twitter Stream API and an Emic 2 Text-to-Speech Module to read tweets out loud.

troyforstertroy.forster
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9 comments
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This first version is mostly a proof of concept. It can/will/does read all tweets associated with the user specified in config.secure.json:twitterCredentials. The first version also includes a few basic transformations of the original tweet to sound more colloquial:

Uses user name and not @handle, followed by "said"
Both native retweets and old school "RT"s are transformed to "retweeted"
Favourites are transformed to "favourited"
@ characters are transformed to "at"
# characters are transformed to "hash tag"
URLs are ignored

To hear what it sounds like see the 9 second video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUrey-f32_Q

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J Groff wrote 07/12/2014 at 17:38 • point
Ha, I thought I recognized that voice. That chip uses the old DECTalk code with these old folks:
0: Perfect Paul (Paulo)
1: Huge Harry (Francisco)
2: Beautiful Betty
3: Uppity Ursula
4: Doctor Dennis (Enrique)
5: Kit the Kid
6: Frail Frank
7: Rough Rita
8: Whispering Wendy (Beatriz)
or you can choose the Epson parser but then you dont get this:
http://www.theflameofhope.co/SONGS.html
and who doesnt want a robot that sings 'Bohemian Rhapsody'!

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C.T. wrote 06/29/2014 at 03:27 • point
would it be possible to post the code for how to set up the gpio ?

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troy.forster wrote 06/30/2014 at 18:34 • point
All the code is in my Github repo, link in the left sidebar. That said there was nothing special I needed to do. I'm using the pre-assigned serial port pins for Tx and Rx and just connecting those directly to the corresponding input and ouput pins on the Emic board. Since the Emic 2 seems to be happy with 3-5 (even though it indicates 5v input) I didn't need any additional level shifting.

An older project required serial access from a host computer running Windows for which I used a http://www.adafruit.com/products/954 and Putty to read/write serial.

What are you trying to do with your project?

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C.T. wrote 06/25/2014 at 19:14 • point
ok so mine was pretty much installed the same way but I could never get it working. I guess I need to go set up the gpio and I don't understand enough to do that yet. When iwas trying to figure it all out I kept seeing the espeak software. I tried it and it was easy to get, install, and operate. So now im left with the question. If you can just download espeak then why buy a 50 dollar chip (emic 2)?

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troy.forster wrote 06/25/2014 at 19:25 • point
Well, I've actually purchased the Emic board to go into a Parrot AR drone. I'm hoping to hack the undocumented serial port and then send strings of text from a wifi base station to it.

Although I haven't tried espeak yet I would expect it would suffer from the terrible sound quality on the Pi. I think you would still need a sound card or USB sound adapter to get decent quality audio. But to your point, that would still be less than the $50 cost of the Emic.

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J Groff wrote 07/12/2014 at 17:23 • point
If you're not already using an RPi then the answer is size and power consumption. If you are, I would try 'flite' the lightweight 'festival'. I would say the sound quality is equal to the quality I heard from that emic2. Still kinda neato tho

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C.T. wrote 06/24/2014 at 21:11 • point
my question is, the emic 2 runs on 5v because I believe it is for the adrino, and rpi uses 3.3v so how did you hook it up? did you just use the rpi gpio 5v or run it with 3.3 or what?

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C.T. wrote 06/24/2014 at 22:13 • point
I meant arduino

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troy.forster wrote 06/25/2014 at 16:00 • point
I'm just pulling straight from the RPi 5v pin 4. The Emic 2 isn't for any specific micro-controller. As long as it's got current and a serial connection it's quite happy. My first version used a Spark Core and I was able to drive it from the Spark's 3.3v pin.

  Are you sure? yes | no

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