Telepresence project

[Travis Smith]

OMGers,

Hey, I'm moving to Japan, its happening. 

Completely due to self interest, I'm suddenly smitten with the idea of making a telepresence robot.  The basic plan would be to make one on the cheap using skype, a cheap laptop, a roomba, and some mechanism for changing the height of the laptop.  Usage would probably need to be limited to our members in absentsia, as I would want to enjoy consistent problem free use of the device, and random people on the internet lack stewardship.  For this right I'm willing to front the cash.

The point?  While I won't be around, I wanna be around.  OMG and hanging out with you guys is pretty much my favorite part about Omaha.

Patrick votes yes as well (just a guess).  Anyone want to get in on this project?  Deadline is February for a working model.  We can go easy and work with models already out there, or get creative and make our own monstrosity.

Travis

[Kevin Fusselman]

Well, I can't promise "problem free", but I'm in for some labor.  We probably have an appropriate "tank drive" RC chassis, and a laptop around the space...An Arduino with a little twin-H-bridge board would get the thing moving.... 

I'll check on materials on Wednesday.

[David Knaack]

I am skeptical that anything we've got sitting around is going to be powerful and stable enough to safely hold a laptop at something approaching head height. I think that since reliable and robust mobility is kind of a make-or-break feature for a telepresence bot, that's probably an area where we should consider putting some money. Are there inexpensive off-the-shelf-ish robot platforms that would be suitable?

Some pre-built motor controllers would probably be the best option for drive electronics. There will probably be plenty to go wrong without needing to develop our own drivers.

Does Skype support stereo audio? An open mic in an environment as acoustically hostile as the Makery is probably going to be very difficult to get anything from. We would want a good quality stereo mic so the user can get useful sound.

What about camera/image stabilization? A camera on a stick with a short wheelbase is going to jerk around a whole lot, which will make the picture unwatchable while the bot is moving. That's not very cool.

Also, presumably the main camera is going to be looking up, so in order to drive around it's going to need at least one wide-angle camera with good low-light performance looking down at the base so the user can avoid driving into holes or 1800degF furnaces and such.

[Kevin Fusselman]

You're probably right...

What says that the entire laptop needs to be on the "stick"? You could save a lot of weight up top by carrying most of the laptop down low, and carrying only the screen and camera high.

Ballast from the pile of SLAs we'd probably use could be substantial...

[David Knaack]

I'm assuming the design places a screen and camera at a height-above-floor of at least 1.2m so that the interaction is not just with a faceless camera-on-a-stick. Any monitors we might use for this are probably not going to be much lighter than an relatively modern laptop, and they are easier to power as well. With luck it might have a camera built in. 

While a low center of gravity makes it safer from falling over, but it doesn't do anything to mitigate the large angular shift a short wheelbase puts on the tall post where the camera is (in fact, I suppose it actually makes it worse by reducing the polar moment of inertia, but either way the shaky-cam effect would be worse than a Battlestar Galactica cameraman on his fifth cappuccino).

[Travis Smith]

We could put rails on the ceiling and extend a boom with the camera and screen on it...

Travis

[Travis Smith]

Or there's the old Red Dwarf model of simply having cameras and monitors everywhere to zip to.  I still like the robot model better, though.

Travis

[David Knaack]

We've discussed the possibility of a camera on an overhead wire connected to three motorized spools such that it could move around the room under user control and observe from approximately head-height.

That would probably be an easier build, but it's confined to a single room, and there are some control complexities that would have to be worked out. It's a neat project that would be easier to give to unknown remote visitors, but doesn't have the same cool-factor that an independent robot has.

[Marc M]

If you guys decide on the robot. I am willing to donate a 17" LCD to
the project!!
Let me know. I will get one cracked open and repair one for you.

Marc

[Eric J. Kaplan]

This would be the aforementioned (in another thread) SkyCam. 

Sent from Eric's iPhone

[patrick]

I do vote yes. Could I suggest a cheap android phone and a custom android app to control the robot it has built in cameras f/r and usually has gyroscopes and accelerometers. I can be wireless and run for quite some time on battery power. A Wall charging station could be rigged up for it to go back to when power is running low. Or a battery swap station that swaps the battery with a new one whilst it is still plugged in so that it doesn't have to reboot when it runs out of power. Much like the Battery swap idea on an electric car.

[Jeff Jensen]

How about fabricating the chassis with a longer and wider wheel base to reduce the tippy-ness?  Another source of low-COG ballast will be the batteries.  In this case some gel cell types may offer both capacity and weight.  For the facial display, the 7" carputer units are much lighter.

To keep the unit from going into traffic or danger (3rd law of robotics?) we could either create the equivalent of an invisible fence system with a perimeter wire and spot transmitters, or a roomba virtual wall with IR.

J

[Kevin Fusselman]

Agreed, regarding the 7" display.  Neither resolution nor size is really an issue for that display.  I'm far more concerned with the quality of the webcam, sending

Regarding the batteries, I think you're on the right track too... some monster SLAs (I'm thinking a pair of 18ah, or a stack of the little 5ah)... It'd be heavy, but that's not really an issue.  This thing is supposed to move easily and safely from A to B.  Acceleration and top speed aren't really considerations.

Something else to consider: We need to make sure that whatever we come up with isn't so good as to never actually get built, for cost or integration reasons.

[patrick]

A few Commercial versions to draw ideas from. 

http://www.slashgear.com/beam-rpd-telepresence-robot-costs-over-16000-27249444/

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/double-turns-the-ipad-into-a-telepresence-robot/

http://telepresencerobots.com

On Monday, November 5, 2012 7:41:26 PM UTC-6, Travis Smith wrote:

[Brandon Norris]

or if we have a roomba, and a laptop

http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2011/02/low-cost-video-chat-robot.html 

[Kevin Fusselman]

The choice to use a Roomba vs any other platform is seemingly trivial... I'd think that in the Makery environment, something with bigger wheels (or tracks) would be preferable...

That said, if the telepresense robot could simultaneously vacuum the floor, we might be onto something...  "Travis, we're headed to dinner; go do some vacuuming, and we'll be back in a bit..."

[patrick]

I feel it needs the same capability that the MMM has to tilt up and down. the panning of course would be done by the robot.

On Monday, November 5, 2012 7:41:26 PM UTC-6, Travis Smith wrote:

[David Knaack]

If the camera itself is high def we might be able to get away with using a wide angle view to avoid building a control system for the camera.

[patrick]

Kevin is worried about bandwidth for high def.

[Kevin Fusselman]

Nah, 1080p is fine; we'll compensate for the bandwidth in framerate... how does 0.2fps sound?  :)

[David Knaack]

I was thinking that the high def wide angle feed would go through a stream filter to crop out the desired section of the image (and maybe transform it to remove the wide angle distortion), providing a software based pan/tilt feature while keeping hardware and bandwidth down.

[Kevin Fusselman]

So, sorta like one of those gigapixel cameras in reverse...

[Travis Smith]

I think we're on the right track, but I'd like to second the idea that this thing be attainable/upgradable from a base model.  I'd prefer shitty but robust to awesome and always almost ready. 

-Travis

[Travis Smith]

How about a telescoping, articulating tentacle that mounts to a wall or the ceiling?  Aliens love that tech (Abyss, War of the Worlds)

Travis

[patrick]

Star wars never thought it of it as being very practical.

[Travis Smith]

True, the best you got with that was the door guard at Jabba's Palace.  That guy was an ass.

Travis

[Kevin Fusselman]

Star wars was usually the opposite of practical... Seriously, where do you park a super star destroyer?

[Brandon Norris]

Anywhere you want!

http://instantrimshot.com/

[Travis Smith]

Lulz

Travis

[Travis Smith]

http://youtu.be/ycDXejvsYJk

Travis

[David J. Gotrik]

Instead of a laptop; couldn't we just have everything running off a raspberry pi?

Skype on RPi:

http://elinux.org/RPi_Using_Skypekit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqH54GyRdys

Wifi(sold out currently, but could look elsewhere)

http://www.buyraspberrypi.com.au/raspberry-pi-802-11bgn-usb-wireless-dongle/

Would have to look into LCD situation, but I don't think it'd be too difficult.  I was thinking we could also maybe interface it with the chipKit board and IO shield for movement/sensor control since we have quite a few of those laying around ;)

[David Knaack]

I thought about a Pi. I see it as having certain features: low power, small, cheap. 

In this case, we will have lots of battery relative to the usage time, so low power isn't a driving factor. 

Small also isn't a driver, considering that we're looking at something on the order of a 17" screen up top and something that can carry a load of SLA's and motors on the bottom. (Size might be more of a factor if we wanted to source a much smaller display, something around 7" or so, but I have a feeling that doing that potentially creates some constraints without providing very much benefit.)

Cheap is good, but I wouldn't be surprised if we can acquire one or more laptops with more processing and storage than a Pi for equal or lower cost.

So while it's a cool platform, I'm not seeing how it is a competitor to a laptop in this particular application.

[tavshed]

I'm not able to make it to the Makery nearly as much as I'd like and am very interested in this taking off.

I have a 17" vesa monitor (circa 2003 so it isn't HD), raspberry pi with wifi adapter, 720p usb camera, and working roomba available for the project. Let me know if any of the components can be put to use.

- Mike

[patrick]

Perhaps the use of this should be limited to paying members.

[patrick]

Sorry I think I came off kinda rude there. Mike im not sure if I remember you but I think we will be limiting the use of this system to regular attending/paying members. Paying members with out attending may be allowed that depends on those building it and usage stats.

[tavshed]

I don't make it very often, but am a Patron dues member.

- Mike

[Travis Smith]

Erm...I can see where this might be going.  Robot doesn't exist yet.  Patrick and I really want it because there is no way possible we'll be able to attend the meetings, and there are no makerspaces where he lives or where I'm going.  That's our motivation: extreme lack.  He lives in Mississippi, for example.

I can see how lots of other people would have valid reasons for having one of these things, though.

Travis

[patrick]

Yeah making a fleet of them is both impractical and there isn't any space available for that. Jason I could see wanting to use it isn't he still in Boston?

[Travis Smith]

Jenga!  Jenga?  No?  Yes?

Roombas are about $70 average on ebay.  Not sure what base would be best, but I'm throwing that on there for comparison.  Hella slow, but should be a stable platform.  Has code out there to hack it.

Travis

[Brandon Norris]

I think it may go something like this

http://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0?t=2m15s

only replace the tv station with robot.

On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 8:35 AM, patrick <patrick...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Travis Smith]

Solution!  I believe Skype does teleconferencing.  Everyone could get on the party line that is the robot, and one person could pilot.  The bot would be a bit schizophrenic, but hey, whatever, it fits.

Travis

[Kevin Fusselman]

Wait, a mentally unstable robot?

We'd best keep the pod bay doors under manual control, for the time being...

[Eric J. Kaplan]

The Skype teleconference option may only be available to subscription members (I.e. paid). Google+ hangout might be another option.

Sent from my iPad

[tavshed]

My interest is being able to watch presentations.

- Mike

On Nov 7, 2012, at 8:49 AM, Travis Smith <trav...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Kevin Fusselman]

Yea, we could get better about streaming/recording those...  Background noise is a huge [but not insurmountable] challenge, both mechanical and personal. 

[tavshed]

I'll donate a 1-year Skype premium account for teleconferencing if that would be useful. I don't want to sidetrack Travis' original idea though.

- Mike

[Travis Smith]

Excellent! I think it could be. We'll have to see

What the consensus is. 

Had another idea that may draw some into this thing:

Borrowing Dave's wide angle lens idea, how about we make this sucker look like a Dalek?

-Travis

[Eric Kaplan]

Not to be Debbie-Downer here, but I think we need to give serious consideration to the available space and the implications of a robot moving around in it.  Things can get pretty tight there, especially on Tuesdays when we have lots of people (that's a good thing!) working on lots of projects (that's an even-better thing!).  There is often ducking or swerving to get from one point to another, avoiding an elbow or a piece of pipe or a crowd of observers.

Certainly a Shelbot would be a cool thing to build and develop, and certainly would be slick to show off at events and in our display booth.  But is it going to be unrealistic to functionally move around the space, such that it gets left in the corner?  And what happens on meeting night when Travis, Patrick, AND Mike all want to participate?

And while I realize it's a boon for the folks to see and control remotely, someone will need to take responsibility for keeping it charged, operational, and maintaining it should the network or power go down.  We seem to have a plate-load of challenges already maintaining our internet and MMM equipment as it is.

Would a better solution be to flood the space with webcams and microphones, accessible from a web page?  Maybe a page with a map of the space and locations of each camera, clicking on the location on the map brings up the image and activates the mic?  Or maybe a monitor/webcam/mic combo (running off a RasPi), each one strategically placed?  You could even have some sort of protocol that indicates an "in-use" location and gives the user the option to select another location.  So Travis could be on one monitor, Patrick on another, and Mike on a third.

Just offering another perspective.....

--

Eric J. Kaplan                                       

• ekap...@gmail.com
• www.ejk00.smugmug.com

[Kevin Fusselman]

Wait, are you suggesting that a Protocol Droid is somehow inferior to a smartphone? :)  (hint: You don't need a Wookie to transport a malfunctioning smartphone...)

While the "Lots of portholes" solution is less flashy, it might be more practical...  Just a thought.

[Eric Kaplan]

More practical, and potentially easier to implement and expand.

[Travis Smith]

I'm not picky. Either model works. 

-Travis

[Ryan Stille]

I would come record more presentations, if I knew they were happening. When I see a meeting date approaching on the calendar, I check this list for an announcement of a presentation topic but usually don't see anything. So I assumed there were no "real" presentations happening that night, I figured it was just an informal get together. Am I wrong?

-Ryan

[Ben Hutcheson]

During the summer that would have been somewhat accurate.  Currently, however, every Tuesday is a formal meeting with a scheduled presentation.  We should try to announce them a bit more consistently, perhaps, but there will almost always be one.

[Kevin Fusselman]

We've got a big problem getting presentations booked in advance, getting a summary from the presenter, and an email out in a timely fashion.  

Presently, we have a polyclay jewelry presentation booked for next week (the 13th) and nothing beyond that.  We've been pretty steady thus far, having a good presentation each Tuesday, but the announcement part is the sticking point.

Reminder:  Anyone who is interested in presenting [on anything "maker-ish", really] can contact in...@omahamakergroup.org to schedule a date :)  The further in advance the better.

[David Knaack]

I'm a fan of the 'portals' approach. 

A related option I was considering for expanding the MMM would be to allow Android phone users (there is probably something similar for iOS) to register their "IP Webcam" address so that anyone on the network could turn on their webcam app and be listed on the webcams page as a streaming source for viewers. That would allow people to easily provide 'portable portals' to remote users (probably on request) without requiring a lot of on-the-spot setup.

[Kevin Fusselman]

We could certainly find some "house" android devices, too...

Do you have a link to this "IP Webcam" app?

[Kevin Fusselman]

I should try searching before I ask... Search "IP Webcam" on the Play store... 1st hit, 1m+ downloads

[David Knaack]

As often as people upgrade phones, it shouldn't be hard to find some that can just live there. I use my old phone at home in exactly that way. I can turn on the web cam app and go leave the phone pointed at anything I want to monitor. Very handy. If we wanted to integrate some old phones into the existing webcam page it is only a matter of configuration, the app is free, and the system already supports everything we need to integrate more cameras.

[Kevin Fusselman]

Between that and the Twittertype (it needs a better name), that'd be pretty awesome.

[Eric Kaplan]

I'm not trying to derail the Shelbot, especially since it seems to have been getting a lot of interest and some folks already have some pretty good ideas about the design.  Just want to be practical, too.

[Eric Kaplan]

I like "TwitterType".  A TeleType was a typing device that ran off the phone system, so by natural extension a typing device that runs off of Twitter would be a TwitterType.  Or a TwitType....

[David Knaack]

TeleTwit?

[Kevin Fusselman]

Tell-A-Twit? Isn't that what happens every time a tweet is sent?

[Chamelaeon Wombatowski]

Twype?

[David Knaack]

That's the idea :D

[Travis Smith]

Ok, well, there are a lot of good ideas on this thread, but I'm
concerned that the original desired effect might be lost.

I'd like to link in and actually interact on a personal level, as if I
were there. Unless the webcams can give real time video and audio and
put the user close enough to the action, its more of a spectator
effect than a participation effect.

>>>>>>>>>>> Shelbot<http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/Mobile_Virtual_Presence_Device>would

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://elinux.org/RPi_Using_**Sk**ypekit<http://elinux.org/RPi_Using_Skypekit>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?**v**=nqH54GyRdys<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqH54GyRdys>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Wifi(sold out currently, but could look elsewhere)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.buyraspberrypi.com.****
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> au/raspberry-pi-802-11bgn-usb-****wireless-dongle/<http://www.buyraspberrypi.com.au/raspberry-pi-802-11bgn-usb-wireless-dongle/>

>>>>>>>>>>> *Eric J. Kaplan *
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> - ekap...@gmail.com
>>>>>>>>>>> - www.ejk00.smugmug.com
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> *Eric J. Kaplan *
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> - ekap...@gmail.com
>>>>>>>>> - www.ejk00.smugmug.com
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> *Eric J. Kaplan *
>>>>
>>>> - ekap...@gmail.com
>>>> - www.ejk00.smugmug.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>


--
Travis

[David Knaack]

The 'many cameras' approach is definitely a spectator approach, no matter how good the video going out is, there isn't any coming back.

A mobile robot is a much better option for interactivity. Also, much more fun to play dress-up with.

I looked around at pre-built platforms for robots. Based on those prices, we're in the wrong business. Holy sticker-shock, Batman.

How much do we think we could build a basic wheeled platform for? I'm thinking that a castor and something like two of these:

http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?item=5-1769&catname=electric

would allow for a zero-turn radius human-driven platform that operates from a couple of SLA's. Motor control is just a couple of basic h-bridges, we can probably get that for nearly free. That would provide a motion platform with the balls to carry around enough weight to make it stable, and sufficient power to drive over most of the small lumps on the floor around the makery (I'm thinking approximately 8" wheels, something like what the scooters have).

[tavshed]

Any traction with this idea?

[Travis Smith]

Not yet...been sidetracked by life getting in the way. 

Travis

On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 11:09 PM, tavshed <mtimm....@gmail.com> wrote:

Any traction with this idea?