It is not really Star-Trek teleportation, but being transplanted to another place as a robot is really cool. So did we found out. It all started with an article in IEEE Spectrum (09/10) by EricoGuizzo (When my avatar went to work) explaining the nuances of a telepresence robot, that really hooked us. In it, he explained how his creation QB, lets remote workers collaborate with others in ways that a wall mounted monitor in a conference room could never permit.
He says by embodying QB, one would be able to join impromptu meetings, drop by anywhere in an office scenario, even gossip at water cooler. In terms of Peter Drucker, why transport a whole body when all you need is the brain? Hmm… we thought. Then we read an article in which its mentioned that Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts are now turning into this field, more of consumer oriented robotics. Following week we happened to attend a lecture,during Tathva’10 at NIT- Calicut, by one Mr. Ullas P who works for Wipro, in which he explained the possibilities of domestic day to day cheap robots.
There… Our goal was clear. ‘But how?’ was the question. Guizzo’s QB was much sleek and slender and cost about $15000. Ehh… that was not acceptable. Then we read about ‘Internet controlled automation’. Cool, it dawned on us, an Internet Controlled Surrogate Robot. We realized we would need a dedicated system. In the first phase, Noorudheen went ahead and got the model ready. A head and a base ready carved out of plywood with a steel stick connecting the two wooden platforms. We bought 4 12V dc motors and connected them to the base. The stuff would run amazingly with even 5 kilograms of load. We got hold of a free remote desktop software called ‘Teamviewer’ through which the host system would control the robotic system by authentication. Now, presence has to be transmitted. For that video conferencing was required, we zeroed in on Skype for that. This enough fetched us marks in our first presentation.
Phase two had a modest start. We were nowhere to begin the prototype designing. We had to buy a PIC, program it, get the PCB done, solder components, and all. We just were too lazy to do it. That was when as a God sent angel Ayush Sir, passed by and said ‘guys, why don’t you try ARDUINO?’. That’s it. Within no time, we researched everything about this beauty called Arduino,(Free Hardware) bought it, and started assembling it. For next few days Amith and Nooru sat in the college till 8, designing the prototype with Ayush Sir (I was not there, I had supplementaries. Sh!t). We modified the stuff, programmed, created a GUI, wired the whole stuff and TADA!! We just gave birth to a bot.Awww (tears of joy)
Next step connection. Once Arduino, set the motors rolling. Next things were simple. Video conferencing through Skype was proper. Teamviewer controlled the remote desktop by authentication, superbly. The thing was moving as we had planned. Thank God!!
We took our project to a competition at IES, Chittilappilly and to our surprise we stood first. That was a shocker. Why did we win? I mean how, there were around eleven teams and each one better than the previous. Talking to that judge gave us an idea that our thing holds a horrible potential. We realized that we only used the readily available free resources for our project, making it novel, simple, indigenous, innovative and very cheap. We built our prototype within $30 and yeah the dedicated netbook costs $300. But if the system has a dedicated operating system, say the cost be brought down further. We just plan to go for funding for the project through IEEE. But we need to wait and analyze and talk to some people first about the future scope of this.
So now, almost completed a big step towards the completion of this venture, we wanted to call it something. We chose a much modest name. We named it ‘THE AVATHAR’.
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