Dancing Penguin Robot with Happy Feet

[Humanoido]

PENGUIN ROBOT DANCING
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9owSIXhh_Mo

Penguin is a tiny new robot, which is a greatly scaled
down version of the Parallax Toddler robot.

You may think there's not a lot of things you can do
with just two servo motors. Face it, even getting
a biped to walk smooth is a real challenge!

But for the past 3 months I've been in the lab
writing software. This has led to some very
interesting things, like dancing and skating.

Some of the dance moves are rather fantastic,
wouldn't you say? Penguin goes beyond his two
servo motors. The code has virtual motors. These
exist only in software. But they give the robot
capability to move in new ways.

Let me know what you think of this dancing. It's
modeled after little Mumbles Penguin on the Happy
Feet movie. You can see more about the movie on
YouTube by a search for happy feet.

humanoido

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[Droid Works]

Parallax has always had some cool stuff like the boe-bot and the Emic. I have to say the virtual motor is a pretty cool idea.

[Humanoido]

Thanks for the comments, DroidWorks. Indeed, Parallax has a lot of cool stuff, including the CMUcam and ultrasonic PING))) vision, both work with the BoeBot. They even have a digital version accelerometer and other sensors. I think their Penguin robot motherboard may be one of the smallest ever manufactured! One could spin off this technology into other robots too! Can you imagine the power of using it as a coprocessor?!!

The EMIC speech board is certainly one of the coolest products. Did you know it's possible to run it with one line?! Well, two are better, with the reset, but in a tight configuration this feature of one controlling line is extremely useful. I also like its TTS text to speech capability. I'd say we're thinking along the same line, DroidWorks.

When dealing with only two servos, I had to invent virtual motors to make the other motions. This biped has only tilt and stride, so the virtual motor concept can be very useful. I can see where this may be used in a humanoid with 22 motors, to add some desired motion in the hips and legs, for example. What do you think about applying the virtual motor concept to humanoids?

humanoido

[Droid Works]

I agree, I am currently working on a humanoid useing a bs2e, mini atom bot board and a SSC-2. The only problem I am haveing is finding servos and servo brackets I like. I have a friend who has a CNC and I want to see if he will let me use it to make some. The virtual motor is a very cool idea and I think is would give a humanoid a less predictable behavior and feel.

[Humanoido]

I've had the opportunity to work more with the virtual servos. Mainly, I can get new motions that are remarkable by changing some of the elements of physics such as introducing some harmonics and very high speeds. For unpredictable behaviors, wow, I think these latest program sessions have hit the jackpot. There are some really good things that make behaviors unpredictable. Loose bolts, low battery, worn servos, random number generator in the code, to name a few. Can you think of any others?

humanoido