Instructables user [tanbata] recently got his hands on a Google Anroid figurine and thought that while it looked great, it served no real purpose. He decided to change that, and converted this once-useless hunk of plastic into a miniature robot that moves and responds to sound.
He pried of the head of the figure and got busy fitting a servo into the Android’s body to enable head movement. An ATiny was added to control the figure, along with a microphone to enable it to respond to sound. A piezo was inserted to relay Morse code messages, and a handful of LEDs were installed in the body cavity and eyes of the figure just for kicks.
When the bot is powered on and senses a loud enough sound, the eyes light, the head spins from side to side, and the robot spouts off a random message in Morse code as you can see in the video below.
It’s not the most advanced project out there, but with a few tweaks, it could make for a great USB-powered email or IM notification system for your PC. Better yet, it’s a great project to do with a child who is interested in electronics, since they get to make a cool robot toy they can keep.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew876S8voJY&w=470]
That is cool.
Add a wireless module and you got yourself a morse code feed reader =D
First, and I like it, needs to spit flames at iphones
Both brilliant and cute.
Yes, but, what does it say???
How about installing a couple of phototransistors alongside the LED eyes, so the head can be made to follow a bright light held in front of the robot. (OK you’d have to only poll the PT’s when the LEDs are off, but that’s easy enough).
OMG I want one
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Beowulf clusters – and there was me thinking that this was hackaday and not slashdot :)
cute :) i want one too.
it would be funny to build two robots like this.
then upgrading the software so they could talk
morse code to each other
What is it saying in morise code
translation: GOOGLE ANDROID ROCKSC
heh
that last C is just weird, but I listened to it a couple times and it comes out everytime…
The morse code has just horrible timing associated with it. I’m a ham operator, and I can’t copy it.
@mrbrt — the last character is a K, not a C. That’s traditional morse code for “over to you.” However, due to the poor spacing of the characters, it sounds like it’s part of the last word, which it really oughtn’t be.
He says (Google Android Rocks) and the second time says (Gingerbread Tastes Good) I understand the first one but ginger bread ?? beats me my decoding could be wrong but it would have to be horribly wrong.
@Connor – seriously?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history
Nice. :)
Can’t wait for the next edition.
Der sorry im a bit of a idiot