it's been a while (but not without updates!)

I did not have much free time to work on this over the last couple of months,

but every once in a while when I did remember (hard not to, I keep the robot hand right in front of the computer), I tried to do something, mostly in the hardware procurement side of things.

some of the things I ended up acquiring:

- Raspberry Pi Zero (also the Raspberry Pi Zero W, which has wifi+bluetooth internally, but I just received it today thanks to Mr. Arjun Rao), for more versatile control (also to make possible to connect to the Leap Motion)

- AA battery power holders, to use AA batteries to power the servos

- A PCA9685 chip, for multiple servo control

- various electronic circuitry (probably won't be necessary for this project anymore)

in addition, I was made aware of a nice project called Cylon.js and its sister project Gobot, which allows users to program microcontrollers using JavaScript and Golang, respectively.

I really wanted to try Gobot and take a dive into the Golang world, but it currently does not have support for the PCA9685, which Cylon.js seems to provide.

with that said, and with a few lines of code, here is the result:

the control of the servos are done through the PCA9685 connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero (no more Arduino), and the servos are powered through the 4-AA batteries.

the next step is to read values from the Leap Motion, which Cylon.js claims to provide.

when that works, we are starting to reach a good place.

Comments

playing with servos

some servos that I had ordered were delivered. the instructions suggested another brand/model of servos, but these were a much more economical (cheap). I tried adding them to the hand: I'll have to print the "pulley" pieces that will be attached to the servos. meanwhile, I did somewhat (hackily) got the wrist to work, for now: you keep hearing the "usb plugged out" sound in the background, and that's because the servo was being powered by the arduino. the servo's power draw appears to be causing a shutdown of the device. will need a better power source for the servos. it feels like these pieces that are supposed to be plugged into the servo will have size issues.

dabbling with android

I've been wanting to dabble with Android development recently, and yesterday I realized that there is a Socket.IO client API available for Java/Android. The API is pretty straightforward, so I loaded a test Android project I had made for going through Android basics and connected to the OpenSesame Node server. and it works! I mean, the interface is non-existent and it's really just bare-bones, but having the servo respond through an Android application was pretty refreshing. (the web client and the android client "communicating" with each other--messaging is pretty much for debugging purposes)

chunk update: most parts printed and assembled

currently: stuff that happened are: wired the fingers added screws to necessary assemblies witnessed first failed print during this: servos haven't come yet, but once they do, we can start installing them into the hand/forearm. as always, credit to the Inmoov project.

the quest for robots

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