Introducing Snoopy

My ultimate goal is to have a reasonably interactive humanoid robot. I'm planning to do stereo vision & hearing with auditory output. I'm using a Bioloid comprehesive kit (19DOF) which I've added 8 servos to for 27DOF. The extra mobility is in the pan/tilt head and arms with simple clasping hands.

I have been tinkering a lot with the configuration of my Bioloid over the past year. Please check out my Bioloid album to see the transformation.

My most recent changes include using the extra chest unit I have to house the hips and mount the battery on the butt. I hopped the lower centre of gravity would make for a more stable stance and to make room on the back of the torso to mount a BeagleBoard. The lower centre of gravity does indeed makes it far easier for the bioloid to just stand, power off, in various positions, without toppling over.

I'm going to keep the CM5 as it tie's nicely with the battery and I should easily be able to command it with the BeagleBoard via serial connection. The BeagleBoard can link to a my PC via USB wifi and bluetooth. I have bluetooth dongles, but I've had only moderate susccess so far with getting them to work, so I might cop out and get a USB wifi stick. I do prefer the lower power usage of the bluetooth dongles, but if I can not make them work, then it's going to be wifi. With my wireless connectivity out of the way I can have an NFS mount for saving data or offloading any "heavy thinking" so Snoopy can focus on staying on his feet and taking in his surroundings.

I began work on how to mount the BeagleBoard on Snoopy's back today. After a lot of measuring and size comparing everything in the house that was anywhere near the size of the BeagleBoard (7.8cmx7.6cm or 3"c3.1"). I've opted to just build my own out of a couple plastic trays that some mushrooms from the grocerystore came on. It's pretty sturdy, not prone to tearing and not brittle.




I'm going to make 2 pieces, one for mounting directly to the back of Snoopy, which will also be where the BeagleBoard is mounted. The other will basically be a lid, but I will also mount a 4 port USB hub on the outside (maybe the inside) of it.





That's where I'm at. More as I get it done.