Updates to Proposal Presentation from Abstract:
This week I was focused on the Proposal Presentation and working on the slides and the script for the presentation. For research, I looked into the ethical implications of our project. I looked into similar literature that presented a interactive study buddy robot such as: https://www.jongwon.net/Interactive-Desktop-Study-Buddy-Robot-Stubie.pdf
From here, I did some research on human-robot interaction ethics and the rules and principles that govern how robots and technology should operate in this domain that is ethically fair to humans.
Acquiring Parts and Considering Design Choices:
After the presentation was finished on Monday, I focused on looking into parts for the motor servos to control the robot and speaker system for the TTS application. Given that our robot has a small functional form, we would want a compact speaker that can deliver ample noise in a confined environment, which goes hand in hand with using a small but powerful speaker.
I was looking into small Arduino speakers ranging from $3.00 to $10.00 that would be compact enough to fit into the back or front of our design. Furthermore, I also had to consider the logic behind the robot responding to audible cues, which is my first task according to the Gantt Schedule.
Future Goals:
I am currently on track and spent time at the end of the week to catch up with my team members to consider overall designs together, such as the microphone system that we plan to use.
In the upcoming week, I will focus on finalizing the logic for both the robot inputting audible cues via microphone system and outputting audio via our speaker system. I also will start working with Mahlet on planning the building of our robot motor system and thinking about the most effective parts to acquire so our compact robot will be capable of movement along the X and Y axis, attached to the neck. We decided that movement along the Z-axis is unnecessary and would add additional complications to how we utilize the motors connecting the body to the head/display of the robot.