NINA
The Robot
Nina is a large scale robotics project I undertook around 2003. As a young child, I always dreamed of building my own robot. As I grew older, I eventually forgot my obsession with robots and moved onto other interests.
However, toward late high school it suddenly struck me...
"Hey...I could read books about how to build robots and build my own robot!"
So I headed on over to the library to check out some books on robotics, electronics, computers, mechanics and other things. I knew it was going to be long process and a journey in itself to learn. But I like challenges, and I the journey was a fun part. After months and months of reading I designed a simple project and...well, okay I could read, but I didn't have any experience. I bought a few things at a local surplus store but the project never came close to working out.
I then decided to fiddle around with a VEX robotics kit, which I was given as a graduation present. The VEX robotics kit comes with mechanical building materials, electronics and microcontroller (the computer part the robot), sensors and fasteners. The rest is up to your imagination. I built two robots with the VEX kit: the first being a quadruped and got around fairly nicely. The legs were a little wobbly on this robot, however, so I called it "Bambi" for fun. The next robot was a rover (a wheeled robot) with a rudimentary mechanical arm. I called this robot Banzai. Both robots were remote controlled and had minimal autonomous features (meaning they couldn't really do anything on their own). After getting some experience under me, I decided it was time to move on to building a robot completely from off the self parts--what some might call building a robot from "scratch."
NINA was the robotics project I undertook. NINA's original design provided for tank-track differential drive, a monocular webcam for vision, a laptop computer for logic, one articulated arm, a load of sensors, and.....
LASERS!!!!!!
Her original function and abilities were to be able to navigate around the house by identifying landmarks with his vision system, respond to voice commands, speak via text-to-speech software, night guard the house, put out fires, detect noxious fumes, and maybe fetch soda pop from the fridge.
Why did I need a robot to do all this, you ask? Well, I didn't, but I wasn't building this robot to do everything around the house for me. I wanted to see what I could accomplish, what problems I could solve, how far I could go, and what I could achieve if I put my mind to it. So NINA's top most goal for me was to serve as an educational experience and a test of my abilities.
The NINA project has taken me years to full accomplish, from study to building, programming and testing. This past October, 2009, I was able to rebuilt NINA 0.7 to NINA Version 1.0! So, without further adue, I give you (drum-roll please)....NINA 1.0!
------ "Hello, everyone!"
As on October 2010, NINA demonstrated herself for Halloween a second time--greeting trick-or-treaters, shaking hands, and reciting the three laws of robotics.
One of my motivations to rebuild NINA was that she was too heavy. It took two people just to push her across the floor, and the frame was a burden to lift off the ground. Her new mobile platform, shown above, is so light I could carry it in one arm. Her treads are Lynxmotion 3 inch wide robot tracks and sprockets, though the hubs are made from AndyMark Inc., and they coincidentally fit perfectly into the sprockets with the same hole pattern for drilling. The hubs fit onto a half-inch keyed shaft with shaft collars and bearings.
NINA's new mobile base is made of sturdy, yet lightweight aluminum angle and square tube stock.
Nina was once powered by wheelchair motors--but with the weight and monstrous power they gave her, I decided they had to go. Her new motors weigh only 2 pounds each and still have sufficient torque to move her, (though to be honest I haven't tested them yet. This is based on calculations). The whopper of a 12V 35 amp-hour, thirty-pound Selaed Lead Acid battery also had to go, replaced with a 7 pound 12V 20 amp-hour Nickle-metal hydride battery pack (shown above with the wheelchair motors). Her motor driver is a Sabertooth 2x25 motor driver, hooked up to her laptop controller by a serial to USB cable.
NINA's new motors were almost these two bicycle motors pictured above, but I decided they were going to suck up too many amps from the batteries. They weigh a little less than half the weight of the wheelchair motors and are still powerful enough to move the weigth of the robot...but I found better ones.
NINA's arm, torso, and neck "joints" are mobilized by Hitec servos and ServoCity power servos. A servo is just a motor that only turns to a certain angle and doesn't spin around round like a conventional motor, making them ideal for robot joints. The servos are powered by a 6V 10 amp hour battery pack wired to a Lynxmotion Serial Servo Controller sold by lynxmtion. The servo-controller is also connected to her laptop brain via a serial to USB cable.
Part of upgrading NINA will involve the addition of sensors. NINA is already equipped with an onboard microphone for speech recognition and two webcams for stereoscopic computer vision. Additional sensors will include things like:
Ultrasonic Range Finders:
NINA will be decked with about six to eight of these round around her mobile base. These sensors detect obstacles by shooting a very small, inaudible ultrasonic noise. When the sound wave bounce off a wall or obstacle, the sensor receives it and processes it into logic through transduction. It then sends a signal to NINA's Central Sensor Board to tell the robot that an obstacle is in the way. It can also tell the robot how far away the object is through proper timing and programming.
Infrared Beam Sensors
In addition to Ultrasound, NINA will also be equipped with LASERS!!!
.......
Well, okay, this isn't exactly a laser beam, but its close. This sensor shoots a narrow beam of infrared light. When the IR light hits a wall or an object, it reflects off of it and bounces back into the sensors receptor. The sensor's circuitry then converts the light energy to logic data through transduction. The robot can also tell how far away the object is through the amount of light energy being converted in this sensor's receptor component.
This is going to be NINA's Central Sensor Board.
I was going to use this mainly as a sensor board, but after having a lot of difficult with serial timeouts via her lynxmotion Serial Servo Controller, I've decided to use this baby's servo controller functionality provided by a much faster USB port. I will also be using it for the amount of analogue data it can read from sensors. This piece of circuitry can handle up to 84 servo motors, and it can read up to 36 channels of 10-bit analogue input from sensors.
NINA's new arm now also has a gripper, or robotic hand.
It's a three fingered hand and simply opens and closes. It was designed by Karl Williams in his book "Build Your Own Humanoid Robots." I intend to incorporate an IR sensor in the palm of the hand so the robot can check to see if anything is in grasping range when the machine is reaching out for something. I may also add pressure sensors in the fingers.
Nina at the Annual KAN Conference in Bakersfield
On February, 2011, I decided to take NINA to the Kern Autism Network Conference in Bakersfield. She was there to help me demonstrate and promote Robotic Autism Therapy Research in the United States. She won the hearts of many attendants at the conference. Those same hours, my business coaches received several calls asking to purchase a robot from me! So I am now setting up yet another more dedicated endeavor...
Videos
Here's a short video of NINA version 0.1 responding to my voice commands and moving around the house.
(I apologize for the poor quality here. I'll try to upload better quality videos soon.)
Here's a video of me demonstrating NINA's Artificial Intelligence for conversation. This program
NINA will run is what I'm dubbing a "Social Machine" program. The idea is to use Robots (or computer characters) to help those with Autism or Asperger Syndrome learn to communicate with all their fellow human beings without worrying about the robot being judgemental of mistakes. It's a daunting task, but an wonderful idea I'm exploring.
(Sorry about the strange clicking in the background...I'm working on getting better videos up in time).
Here is a short presentation of NINA in action along with a brief history of her progress.