The Kasei Initiative

Since 99% of the mobility base looked like absolute crap, I have replaced, improved and reinforced parts. I have to say, *GLaDOS voice* it's looking pretty good.

I'll have pictures up soon, but overall:

- The main base has been replaced with wood

- The mobility base is now level

- The tires have been reinforced onto the servos with Titelock glue, which seems to be working wonderfully

- I have a better method of keeping the AI portion in place (I can't really describe it; pictures will follow tomorrow)

- No wires have been snapped during renovations, which is a relief

Stuff I'll need to do:

- Find out if the microservos are going to be sufficient, and if not, replace them with full-sized servos (and change the front tire so that it's level again)

- Finish aesthetics for the AI portion

- Stupid odds and ends

- Get to the good stuff

The good stuff? FINALLY programming the AI itself. Part of why I put it off for so long was because this stuff would have bothered me otherwise- I like to have a physical robot to show, you know? Lame excuse but eh, it's my robot. I can do what I want with it. A separate project will be posted for the AI portion, as this one seems very cluttered at the moment. So once everything mobility-base-wise gets squared away, I can post completed instructions and an updated components list and move on from there.

Victory! Victory for ZIM.

First off *drumroll* I finally bought a wifi bridge, and so I finally have Internet access from my desktop. Hooray for productivity and whatnot!

Second: Sorry for the delay and all. I have had LOTS of work lately and it's only going to ramp up from here.

Third: Working on upgrades to Kagaku's main body, mainly replacing the chintsy, crappy stuff with still inexpensive yet better stuff, such as a much nicer, much more functional screen holder (it's wood!) and a much sturdier main base for the mobility base (also wood!). I can get away with wood because it's all scrap wood, and this is a completely worthwhile use for scrap wood if this becomes a company. Currently, I still have to take apart the mobility base and put it back together; the main base of it, sadly, has cat litter and vacuum dust on it that can hopefully be washed off. Funny thing, the dust landed on it the day I sprayed polish on it. So hopefully it doesn't stick. Forever. Anyhow, I'm hoping to reconfigure the servos- the wheels are coming off because the hot glue wasn't a good enough bond- and attach them to the main base with steel hanging strip that I have leftover from when I was making a soldering iron holder.

So, stuff's being done, and it's a lot less stressful without deadlines regarding it hanging over my head. Sometime this or next week, I'll be updating the website, probably a complete overhaul.

- Set of wheels put up front instead of the Lego wheel. This has improved balance greatly, but with the servos fixed and better power supply set up, it was flipping over, which was an issue. The front wheel set up needs to be redone, though; it looks REALLY unprofessional.

- I finally found good Python code that can actually send an email successfully. Have not tested on the Pi yet, but I doubt it's an issue.

- New power bank has been acquired- 2000 mAh, and can go up to one amp total, so performance is expected to increase.

- Considering getting a RasPi 2 or 3...

The mobility base now has a battery pack glued to the bottom of the base itself (major tech companies use hot glue sometimes, too!), and the battery pack powers the servos while the 9v battery powers only the Arduino. Minor issues with one of the servos occasionally not responding but I'm ignoring this for now. Putting Kagaku on the mobility base also makes the whole thing unstable, so again, I'm ignoring for the most part right now and focusing on Kagaku himself, specifically the email portion right now.

- Irritating resolution issue fixed. This means that a while ago I messed with it because everything was too small, got irritated with it later because windows were going past the space and there was a black border I couldn't get rid of. And I forgot how to reverse it. But I fixed it! I have to deal with small font, but for my purposes, it's fine.

- Stupid motor issue fixed! Everything is working peachily (yes I made that word up) with the mobility base now! Kind of embarrassing, but I overestimated the voltage needed for the servos and apparently a 9V battery WILL work. I drove him around the living room and aside from one servo being ever so slightly faster than the other, everything is okay. The rechargeable 9V battery I got doesn't work so well with it (I'd assume it's the current), so I'll deal with a standard 9V battery until I find a better one.

- VOIP is not looking to good right now, so the solution is a bit simpler. The whole purpose of it is to contact emergency services, so since you can use Python to access a GMail account, an alert can be sent to caretakers/other people in the event of the user not responding (the logic is that people usually have their email linked to their phones, anyway). The response mechanism would be a hacked phone that rings after a certain amount of time and needs to be "answered" (simply picked up so the mechanism is a digital issue- a 1 or 0, essentially).

- I'll probably be going with Jasper for voice recognition. The file size shouldn't be too much of an issue since Kagaku's programs will be stored on a flashdrive and not the SD card itself. The purpose of this is so that these functions will work offline. From what I've found, Jasper does have some bugs, but I'll see how it goes. The worst that happens is I uninstall it.

Well, Elastix apparently requires an SD card on its own- it won't just fit in with what I have. Back to the drawing board.

Some problems that have since been solved:

- Mobility base has the other servo replaced, and as far as the servos are concerned, everything is working properly

- Still have issues with the battery. Minor issues are present when the base is hooked up to a power supply, but not awful. With the battery, I have no clue why the servos will freeze up. Yes, it's puzzling. I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like this before. All quotes aside, it'll freeze a little bit when hooked to the power supply, but it will still run. The best advice I've had is that it's a programming error (it's not, I can assure you) or there's a voltage leakage. Well, that's what I get for buying a cheap LiPo battery. Screen works fine off of it though, so I dunno.

- Kagaku's various parts are now fully collapsible and fit neatly into a briefcase and a laptop bag. Part of this is thanks to remaking the screen holder (again) and making it detachable from the bottle top thing (Velcro for the win!). This has actually made the top portion a lot more sturdy (it's not held together solely by tape, in other words) and looks better, so I'm not going to mess with it.

- Right now, my focus is on getting Kagaku to have the ability to call 911 with VoiP software (the test runs will be with another phone number, don't worry). I'm trying Elastix for that portion.

- Still looking into voice recognition.

I plugged in the mobility base again, and the servo will sometimes go off full speed in one direction, but it is working properly a good portion of the time... I'm going to keep an eye on this, but otherwise I'm going to assume I'm good to go and focus on Kagaku himself now.

Semifinals video is linked in the side; it's going to end up published on YouTube after the deadline, so that's why I'm linking it now.

Secondly, one of the motors starts spinning out of control for no reason. I am really ticked off because I got everything working just a few minutes before I was ready to tape, then BAM- it stops working. That'll be fixed this week while I wait for judging.

First, I feel the way a wet dog smells; horrible. Feeling rather sick and wish I could go to sleep.

Anyhow, my point in writing this is because I think I've isolated the problem, but wires from one of the buttons broke off (AGAIN), and due to the illness I have, I really don't feel like doing anymore today (Considering all this, I've done a lot as it is). I've got a study hall tomorrow, so hopefully I can solder them back on.

See you all tomorrow. I'm having a cup of tea now and resting up a bit.