[Matt], [Andrew], [Noah], and [Tim] have a pretty interesting build for their capstone project at Ohio Northern University. They’re using a Microsoft Kinect, and a Leap Motion to create a natural user interface for controlling humanoid robots.
The robot the team is using for this project is a tracked humanoid robot they’ve affectionately come to call Johnny Five. Johnny takes commands from a computer, Kinect, and Leap motion to move the chassis, arm, and gripper around in a way that’s somewhat natural, and surely a lot easier than controlling a humanoid robot with a keyboard.
The team has also released all their software onto Github under an open source license. You can grab that over on the Gits, or take a look at some of the pics and videos from the Columbus Mini Maker Faire.
Where did they get those awesome treads?
https://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=37_111&product_id=311 apparently. pricy… but pretty.
Try even pricier.. https://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=149
manufacturer direct: http://www.lynxmotion.com/c-120-no-electronics-kit.aspx
Awesome project. My senior capstone was an alternative way to control humanoids with ‘voodoo style’ moving of a smaller robot. Expensive, but maybe someone will find it interesting:
https://github.com/LofaroLabs
My Github (for the important forks): https://github.com/mannanj
I’m one of the members of the ANUBIS project. Just wanted to say our team is shocked and humbled to see it get picked up by hackaday!
Second!
If you have any questions, we are more than happy to answer them.
-Tim
Is that a kinect v2? Are you using the SDK 2.0 or an earlier one? What drivers are you using? libfreenect2?
The Kinect is a V1. The drivers are the standard SDK that you get from Microsoft. The driving force is the kinematics code in the client software.
Johnny 5 is alive!
He’s been taking steroid laced oil recently…
He is equipped with the standard servo and motor controller. A Beagle Bone Black is added to handle network communications, video stream, and hardware communication. Oh… and a Nerf gun ;)
Innnpppuuuuttt!!!!!
Glad to see the nerf guns I left are going to good use