In anticipation of my upcoming robomancy book project, I am modifying the Electronomicon project to include an actual robot. The NaviGlyph™ component moves the robot forward, reverse, left, or right, as the operator clicks on each glyph with her mouse.
Robot built with fischertechnik:
Arduino Duemilanove with Rugged Circuits motor shield in modified enclosure (packaging from the video camera that will be mounted on the robot):
I have been researching hobby robotics platforms for Arduino and Processing, for my robomancy book, and here are two that look promising although they both have some drawbacks. If you have any suggestions, please contact me or leave a message in the comments section below.
The Finch
The Finch was recently developed by Carnegie Mellon University, for computer science education. While it does not use Arduino, it does use a related AVR chip, and it can be programmed with Processing. The Finch has some great hardware features including obstacle and light sensors, a temperature sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, buzzer, and RGB LED in the nose. The body design is theriomorphic and charmingly ambiguous (bird-fish?), and may appeal to those who do not like their robots “clunky” looking.
The Finch is priced right at $99. Its biggest drawback is that it can only run when tethered by a USB cable to a computer. It has no internal power supply, so even if I communicate with it over wireless USB, I would need to find a way to power the robot. Also, the Finch’s design does not facilitate hacking/extending it, although that is not a huge deal given the number of features it has standard.
Farrusco
“Your First Robot” was developed by Guibot (Guilherme Martins) in Portugal, creator of the Motoruino, which runs Farrusco. I love the way this little guy’s IR sensor pivots back and forth like it is looking around (in a way, it is). Farrusco has bump sensors in addition to the IR, and Guibot promises future add-ons including a line follower, speakers and light sensors, and RGB LED. There does not appear to be much prototyping space on Farrusco’s body, but the Motoruino accepts Arduino shields, and this video shows it being controlled by an Android app or Kinect communicating over XBee radios.
Farrusco costs 139 € assembled and tested, or 79 € as a DIY kit. Considering that I would need to add some components to do all of the things I would like to for the book, it may not be cost effective for this project.
Here is the first in a series of previews of the Electronomicon that I will be presenting at this year’s Esoteric Book Conference. Click the image to view it full-size in a light box.
Tickets to the conference are still available, and the art show and book fair are free to the public, so even if you are not ticketed, please feel free to come by and see me and the other artists there.
This Processing project draws three-dimensional sigils similar to those drawn with Kameas, but on a cube instead of a square. A word (in the following example, “HYPERITUAL” — the duplicate ‘R’ removed) is mapped onto a 9 × 9 cube representing the 26 letters of the English alphabet (the center cube is blank; see table, below). Here is a video showing the sigil rotating on three axes:
Click here to run the program in your browser (click here to view the source code) . This interactive version includes the following keyboard controls:
1: decrease x rotation
2: increase x rotation
3: decrease y rotation
4: increase y rotation
5: decrease z rotation
6: increase z rotation
7: hands-free rotation on all axes
0: stop all rotations
The below image shows the positions of the letters forming a sigil for AZATHOTH. Click the image to run the interactive program in your browser, which responds to your mouse position and buttons (click here for the source code)
Enhancement ideas include interactive input for the word to be sigilized; toggle to show/hide letters; stroke color selector; buttons to save sigil as image or animation; vector interactions with multiple words; various maps (magic cubes, other languages); OpenGL rendering with thicker lines.
We seem to be brought up in a world seen through descriptions by others rather than through our own perceptions. This has the consequence that instead of using language as a tool with which to express thoughts and experience, we accept language as a tool that determines our thoughts and experience. » Heinz von Foerster, Perception of the Future and the Future of Perception
