Shopaid

Semi-autonomous wheeled robot to help with various tasks around the workshop. Starting from the initial prototype of a non-propelled non-intelligent video recording workstation going to fully developed robot capable of repetitive tasks such as welding and working in tandem with humans.

Stage 1: Video Recording

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• Raspberry Pi based video recording / instructional creation workstation.
• Managed with PiNet.
• Uses 4 car batteries:
  • 1 to power the raspberry pi and the monitor
  • 3 to power the ReadyWelder / OSE equivalent.
• Input / Controls:
  • Simple direct button controls that can be manipulated easily while wearing thick gloves.
  • Orbit / Scroll input to navigating in FreeCAD drawings.
• Voice Activated Controls:
  • User can introduce themselves (to get attribution for instructional and fetch pre-defined task list / cut list / FreeCAD diagram).
  • Start / stop videos.
  • Ask to show specific freecad drawing.

Stage 2: Watch Me

• Two cameras.
• Computer Vision processing added.
• Simple articulating camera arm replaced with basic robotic arm.
• Shopaid can more intelligently record the user speaking into camera and the workarea / hand movements at the same time.
• Robotic arms move to have one camera follow the users face and the other camera follows their hands.

Stage 3: Follow Me

• Propelled Wheels
• Shopaid can drive and navigate itself (be summoned from charging station to work area) avoiding obstacles.
• Return itself to charging station.

Stage 4: Hold It

• Robotic arms can be instructed to hold things in place: User would move the arm to desired position and tell robot to lock in place.

Stage 5: Repeat

• Robotic arms can perform repetitive tasks after being taught them. (see: Rethink Robotics Baxter robot arm)