1. Creating a distinctive voice for Salvius
2. Highlighting some of the downsides of a number of existing text-to-speech libraries

https://github.com/gunthercox/primitive-tts

Those interested in following along can check out Salvius’s YouTube page:

https://www.youtube.com/@SalviusRobot/shorts

import socket
import fcntl
import struct


def get_ip_address(ifname):

    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
    return socket.inet_ntoa(fcntl.ioctl(
        s.fileno(),
        0x8915, # SIOCGIFADDR
        struct.pack('256s', ifname[:15])
    )[20:24])

ip_address = get_ip_address('wlan0')

print(ip_address)

VCRs, Cassette players, Walkmans, CD players

Devices like these are a goldmine of parts. In all of these items you will be able to recover small gears, motors, sensors and switches, not to mention a plethora of circuit boards with components that can easily be unsoldered for use in other projects.

Pagers, Cell phones

These devices usually have a few useful parts that can be extracted. The parts used in the circuit boards for cell phones are typically too small to unsolder from the circuit board. The only useful parts that can be recovered are speakers, microphones and vibrator motors. Cell phones may also contain a tiny CMOS camera which is usually too small to be able to easily integrate into other projects.

Televisions, Computer monitors, Air conditioners, Calculators, Television remotes

Items like these typically have nothing of value in them for our robotics projects. You will probably only find one useful item.

In addition to the items listed above there are some rare items which you do not want to pass up if you have the opportunity to get. These items include electronic children’s toys, treadmills, and power wheelchairs. Any children’s toy with electronic parts is going to have a bountiful selection of high quality parts. In addition, treadmills have a selection of motors in them. As for power wheelchairs, if you can get one of these you pretty much have a mobile robot base already. All that needs to be done is to set up a remote connected to the control panel on the chair and you’re good to go.

Know When To Stop

Gear boxes are gold for robotics projects and if you strip one down to just a motor and a pile of gears then you have lost a valuable part. Gear boxes make it very easy to move parts on your robot and you will find that many times just a motor on its own will not suffice. Circuit boards are another valuable resource. There will be times when you can tap into a circuit board and use it, as well as other times when you may just need one capacitor from the board. Some parts are more useful as a whole.

Dangerous Items

Some electronic devices contain components or materials which can be potentially hazardous. All electronic devices contain the toxic element Lead. Lead is used for the solder which attaches electronic parts to the circuit board.

Be careful not to damage batteries, batteries contain acid and other toxic chemicals. Some batteries contain Cadmium, an extremely toxic metal.

Most smoke detectors contain a artificially produced radioisotope, americium-241. You’re not at risk for radiation poisoning from standing near a smoke detector but don’t take these items apart.

Infrared lasers are used in cd and dvd players, be careful if testing a part from one of these devices. Shining any laser into your eye will damage it, but the human eye can’t see infrared light so you can damage your eyes without you even being aware of it.

Capacitors in old monitors and televisions can store a charge of several hundred volts without even being plugged into an electrical socket.

Most devices are completely safe to take apart. It is better to be safe than sorry so do research on the devices you are taking apart. You will soon learn to quickly identify what gadgets contain useful parts and what ones you don’t need to waste your time with. Stay safe and learn what these used devices have to offer.

Raw Materials

Large sheets or blocks of various types of metal and polymers. These items can be machined or milled into nearly anything.

Redesign of where the camera mounts.

Simplification of the neck rotation mechanism.

Allow new face panels to be easily attached.

Options for speech

When I first started exploring ways to add speech to my robotics projects I was using a small FM transmitter to send audio to the robot. However, it can probably be agreed that just sticking a radio in the robot isn’t that cool. Instead we are going to look at a few of the different software and hardware required make this conversion.

Operational requirements

• Can’t slow down other processes to generate the audio.
• Ability to stop speaking process on demand.
• Ability to queue tasks for processing.
• Ability to modify pronunciations as needed.

Design goal

We are going to set up a dedicated speech processor that will receive text data from the robot’s main computer which it will then process into audio signals that can be understood as words. The following options list various pros and cons for available solutions that can handle speech synthesis on either the hardware or software level.

Arduino for speech synthesis

Pros

• Arduino board is low cost.
• Many programs for speech synthesis on an Arduino have already been created so very little needs to be created from scratch.

Cons

• Lowest quality audio output of all options

Raspberry Pi for speech synthesis

Pros

• Install commonly used (free) espeak package.

Cons

• The Raspberry Pi might be overkill for just speech synthesis processing tasks alone.

eSpeak text to speech module

Pros

• Takes the load of speech synthesis off of the robot’s main processor.

Cons

• More expensive ($50 to $70)

An amplifier will be required in either case to amplify the audio you generate for output through speakers.

https://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/fast-cheap.pdf

Endoskeleton develops within the skin or in the deeper body tissues. The vertebrate is basically an endoskeleton made up of two types of tissues (bone and cartilage). During early embryonic development the endoskeleton is composed of notochord and cartilage. The notochord in most vertebrates is replaced by vertebral column and cartilage is replaced by bone in most adults.In three phyla and one subclass of animals, endoskeletons of various complexity are found: Chordata, Echinodermata, Porifera, and Coleoidea. An endoskeleton may function purely for support (as in the case of sponges), but often serves as an attachment site for muscle and a mechanism for transmitting muscular forces. A true endoskeleton is derived from mesodermal tissue. Such a skeleton is present in echinoderms and chordates. The poriferan ‘skeleton’ consists of microscopic calcareous or siliceous spicules or a spongin network. The Coleoidae do not have a true endoskeleton in the evolutionary sense; here, a mollusk exoskeleton evolved into several sorts of internal structure, the “cuttlebone” of cuttlefish being the best-known version. Yet they do have cartilaginous tissue in their body, even if it is not mineralized, especially in the head, where it forms a primitive cranium.The endoskeleton gives shape,support and protection to the body and provides a means of locomotion.