Stack-chan - JavaScript driven super-kawaii robot

robo8080 (@robot8080) is known to be one of the biggest fans/longest involved contributors in the Stack-chan community since I released the M5Stack-Avatar library, the predecessor of the Stack-chan project.

He has been exploring the path of "cute robots" such as face customization and integration with various web services especially voice assistants for several years, The following are just a few examples of his diverse creations.

Alexa & Stack-chan

(https://twitter.com/robo8080/status/1443709810801733657)

It responds to calls in conjunction with Alexa. It reports the weather forecast.

Google translate via Siri shortcut with Stack-chan

(https://twitter.com/robo8080/status/1448271197322366978)

Using the Google Translate service via Siri's shortcut feature, making Stack Chan a great translation assistant.

Such as the applications above, he makes full use of the M5Stack's WiFi communication to connect to these services.

It's also worth noting that he uses cases among Stack-chan's assets, and uses the familiar M5Stack-Avatar library and other Arduino software stacks for firmware development.

He brings out the best of Stack-chan's capabilities in many ways, but what I found most iconic about his relationship with Stack-chan was the following tweet

>何もしなくてもいい。そこにいるだけで癒される🥰（You don't have to do anything. Just being there is soothing）

Isn't this also a new and ideal relationship between robots and people?

Stack-chan has made it to the final round of the HackadayPrize!

Now I'm preparing for the final round, where I plan to show Stuck-chan's potential as a swarm robot. To do this, I have to keep repeating the implementation.

Today, I mounted five more boards for Stack-chan. Although I need to hand-mount small SMD components, each board takes only about 15 minutes to complete.

After using them for some demos, I plan to distribute those boards to people who do not have the environment to mount them.

Smiling Stack-chan, synchronized with my face!

It can follow my face orientation, eye/mouth opening and smiling.

I used Google MediaPipe for face tracking. MediaPipe extracts facial contours and meshes with very high accuracy. I used those meshes to calculate the orientation of the face and the opening and closing of the eyes and mouth.

I used WebSocket to send information to Stack-chan. The Moddable framework includes a WebSocket module. It's easy to use and fast enough, about 20 fps in the case of the above video.

Face synchronization adds a powerful capability to Stack-chan for many use-cases such as teleexistence avatar robot.

The new Stack-chan board (v0.1.1) is now compatible for M5Stack CORE2!

M5Stack CORE2 has touch screen. You can make touch interactions with Stack-chan.

Other than this the board improved many as listed below.

• Add paths between GPIO pins of COER2 to PWM servos
  • you can choose Basic or CORE2 via jumper
• Add SMD diode for stability
• Add hole for mounting 25*2 pinheader
• Adjust screw hole

You can see the full difference in this pull request. And you can get PCB-manufacture-ready gerber files on my repository.

https://github.com/meganetaaan/stack-chan/tree/24443a897cbf4f57765397369b8ad9507bb7ccd3/schematics/m5-pantilt/gerber

 The world's first ever Stack Chan workshop was held onsite!

(https://twitter.com/sasami0709/status/1441431318898757641)

ささみー (@sasami0709) conducted the Stack-chan workshop and photo shoot with the independently created Stack-chan features and assembly instructions.

Six participants of the workshop enjoyed learning to build robots and then went out for a photo shoot in the wilderness.

Stack-chan in the wild! So kawaii!

It should be noted that I am not directly involved in this workshop.
Since the software and hardware of Stack-chan are open to the public under the Apache 2.0 license, this kind of proprietary brush-up and even monetization is possible. I'm glad to see the circle of Stack-chan expanding, while paying people what they deserve for their work.

Good boy...or girl... or whatever...

(https://twitter.com/sasami0709/status/1450450647791276033)

This series of workshops will continue to be held on an irregular basis. The next one will be held in Tokyo on Saturday, October 23. Check this out!
https://peatix.com/event/3043826

Photos and videos by ささみー (@sasami0709)

From my recent tweets(2021-08-24)

Stack-chan can speak sentences using Text to Speech function.

You can choose how Stack-han speaks, either by pre-generating a voice or by streaming a voice query on demand.

See the document for further details: https://github.com/meganetaaan/stack-chan/blob/main/firmware/docs/text-to-speech.md

From recent tweets(2021-08-14)

Two Stack-chans synchronized over mDNS
https://blog.moddable.com/blog/das/
One is the leader and the other is follower who mimics its pose.

src is below.

leader: https://github.com/meganetaaan/stack-chan/blob/main/firmware/mods/mimic_main/mod.js

follower: https://github.com/meganetaaan/stack-chan/blob/main/firmware/mods/mimic_follow/mod.js

From recent tweets (2021-08-07)

Stack-chan integrated with UnitV2 AI Camera by M5Stack
https://shop.m5stack.com/products/unitv2-ai-camera-gc2145
The camera recognizes human face and send face position to Stack-chan.
Then Stack-chan can follow the recognized face.

src: https://github.com/meganetaaan/stack-chan/blob/main/firmware/mods/face_tracker/mod.js

From recent tweets (2021-07-17)

I implemented Stack-chan's gaze behavior.

- Saccade movement (involuntary movement of the eyes).
- "First eyes, then face" gaze movement.
- The robot tries to look in one direction even if the direction of the face is changed externally.

These detailed behaviors contribute to the " liveliness" of this robot.

From recent tweets (2021-06-22)

The first lot of Stack-chan PCB board has arrived from AllPCB. 

https://www.allpcb.com/

ALLPCB offers a free coupon every month for a small (5pcs) lot. I recommend to use it for the first design trial.

I used KiCad designing board layout and exporting gerber data.

And my one is...successful ;)