July R&D - Robots! (Hopefully)
So I am doing my R&D/Creative week now, being the first week of the month(usually). It all relates to Geruterra(previously Mewsli), but it's also to deal with a problem I have been experiencing since I moved into this place.
I also have some things to get caught up with around my house, which brings me to the mouser bots I will be building. Hopefully. I do need a solution for batteries and I THINK I can use a drill battery for this, but I will need to build a circuit to power the Pi from it, probably put some smoothing caps across it to be extra safe.
The PI in this case is a Zero W, I think I can dig up 2 of them that have nothing better to do than run my little bots and their cameras. It will be in charge of communicating with the home server(where the processing is done on the heavy stuff, like identifying targets[rats, mice, etc...]) but otherwise can operate independently and hopefully communicate with each-other to herd rodents and track where they go when they flee with cameras (that have no IR filter).
I will also be using a sort of secondary brain (maybe STM32 or something lower power... maybe use some kind of quartz based tick in the circuit to power up, search for changes, power down. It should be able to check for changes in the array of sensors (Could be Temp, Motion IR Motion Sensors,Laser Distance Sensors, Ultrasonic Distance Sensors, Etc) Which it can also use to build a map of the house using some data captured from distance sensors in relation to current X,Y Coord (in floats I think?) that can be then converted to a Godot based interface to build a navmesh for the bots to follow. I could build the first bot as a test and teach it to map the house for the second bot. Then write a function to make them remap the house on command.
They should be able to use their sensors to chase things that move and fire up the pi with an ultralight OS to record where they go and process telemetry to a DB in order for my to use the Godot based software to map the movements and allow me to find any way they may be getting in and seal it before it becomes an issue. They like to take stuff and hide it in hordes. I found a bunch of quartz and some change and some old keys and even a ring in a horde one made that was under my house... never figured out where it all came from, I just put the stuff I didn't recognize in a cubby hole and left it. Maybe it was here before I moved in?
Anyway the robots will serve a purpose like how making my own little RO server to build bots to play a game I know and get a better understanding of how the AI works. It was a great academic study and I think this will allow me to further that research while also solving a problem. I am hoping this leads to a more robust AI for Geruterra as well as a rodent free existence so I can stop worrying about my dog and cat and geckos and wife all getting sick.
If anything happens to them it really messes me up, so I do my best to protect em. Aside from that I got a damn hero complex that drives me to walk into dangerous situations and I grew up in a place where you did crazy things to prove your strength and courage, so that kinda stays with you. The way we used to decide who the leader of the kids was to throw down and do tests of courage. Ah, my glorious delinquent misspent youth.... time well wasted some would say.
Anyway before I go off waxing nostalgiac about doing foolish things and punching faces as that's okay here, this is the Yarrbeard blog, not Armored Mask. This is where the crazy goes. Need to make my wife's game look like it's not made by a mad scientist for (and with, I am teaching her how to use the tools and code) his wife.) It is a place where I log whatever comes to mind when I write, I usually write at the end of the day when I coded everything for the day and can go over that which is handy... but sometimes I write these long meandering posts like this where I try to understand some things in text and keep it as a log for all the internet to see my madness.
Anyway back to the bots, I need to make old Valoria and Anyxa (based on game characters I made a long time ago that kinda persisted through the years.) and to do that I need me a parts list... based on what I got and what I need. At the very least I will need 3-4 drill batteries to run 2. 1 to start out to test. Not gonna use the one I use in my actual drill though, need to get one.
Next I need to get my sensor array.
- IR Motion Sensor (OR Microwave Motion Sensor, depends on power draw and if I want them to look through walls.)
- 4 laser distance sensors.
- 4 sonic distance sensors.
- Microphone? Probably... how low power can we go?
- One (1) Shiny Metal Ass (For charging)
- Pi zero W
- Non-IR Shielded Image Sensor
- 2-12 IR LEDs @ 3v3 (undervolted to 2v5)
- H Bridge (L298N Dual H Bridge) [What I have on hand]
- --High working power to 35v,large current can reach 3A MAX and continue current is 2A, power to 25w.
- 2 DC Motors (One for each control wheel) Possibly could be drill or similar motors... if they fall in H bridge spec to drive I could also add gearing to give them more speed over torque, etc.
- Some cheapy laser cut chassis I bought a couple of for (I will need something like this eventually and they are on sale right now) purposes.
- Caster wheel (Or some kinda bearing wheel maybe?) for stability.
At first I just want it to be able to follow stuff that moves and map the environment, but first I need to get it powered. Time to look at bank accounts and batteries...
We're looking at 20 bucks for a battery, I have a few of the sensors I need but I should get some extras in case I blow anything up. They are cheap and I want to have reduntant arrays if I can.
The sensors I need right now are...
Tomo
2 or one per bot of these
mounted to a pan-tilt sensor. For now I will make due and it should probably be fine.
developmoreus
These laser sensors (above) placed around the house could alert the bots to any activity out of the room they are watching.
I have some around here somewhere but I should probably get more. Anyway now I have an idea what I am going to do when I am resting my wrist (which is almost fine now, thankfully. got scared I maybe did a permanent one this time for a moment there...) anyway now that that's laid out I can get on to guitar stuff for today...
I could use these robots with mapping systems for future purposes like temp and humidity sensors to find drafts. There are many uses to little rovers like these I think... gonna find out.
Cheers.