ThinBASIC flavoured robo-invitation

[Petr Schreiber]

Dear friends,

if you have some spare time around 1st to 4th December, you might consider stopping by in the Science Museum of London.
Event, named Robotville Festival (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/events/festivals/robotville.aspx) takes place there and various kinds of robots will be presented in this occasion.

One of the robots, which is kept as surprise, is not mentioned in the official list.
It is my electronic child Advee (http://advee.eu/gallery.html) (to be precise not only mine, we made it with 7 friends, so it is probably the only child with 8 parents :)).
In London he will speak english and present various information related to the event. I think you will not miss him, as he is tall as a human and quite loud when speaking.

But why I am writing this post, which seems like advertisement, on ThinBASIC forum?

Well, the fact is Advee's mind is from notable part powered by ThinBASIC. The introductory 3D slideshow on robots touchscreen is generated via ThinBASIC script with TBGL module.
This is quite simple application, more interesting is FURA, program launched on robot start up. It is expert system, written 100% in ThinBASIC, which checks for validity of robot data for all his installed apps.
In case of mismatch or oddity it informs the technician about problem and solution using human language. This program has quite big responsibility, because it must make sure program won't crash, which is something not so trivial, because the robot operates typically for 8+ hours in row each day :p

ThinBASIC is involved in other parts of the robot as well, for example 3D Tombola used on less serious events to draw a winner based on tombola tickets printed by the robot itself, statistics software installed on the robot to give overview about robot usage such as evaluating how people responded in robots quiz... and much more. Even some offline media, such as the movie about Advee built in the robot itself, is generated by ThinBASIC script.

So, if I got you interested, I hope you will enjoy meeting the Advee and other robots as well.

The admission is free, so your wallet should stay undamaged.

If you will get chance to visit the place, I would be happy to hear about your impression from the robot. I sadly won't be there, but my friend will be ready to answer any on place questions.

I hope this post will also encourage some of you to not hesitate to use ThinBASIC for serious work, I found it very helpful and using TB saved me ton of gray hair in many situations.

I would also like to thank very very very (yes, I could use FOR/NEXT here) much to Eros and all the friends from ThinBASIC community for all the help, support and inspiration I got and still get on this forum.
Without your positive influence I doubt I would ever get general programming knowledge high enough to be able to participate on project such as this robot is.


Petr

[largo_winch]

Wow, great to have such a robot friend like advee! thinbasic/tbgl controls a robot with moving technique, touchscreen and serving for energy balance and software control ("Fura")? super! good luck for presentation in London and a lot of new friends for advee (I am thinking you will sell this prototype some day in future by university?) Hope you send more infos and images around this festival, I am curious to see more about that event. be proud of you knowledge with tbgl, that's really a great graphic interface you have built here! So one product of your own skills is living (perhaps) for ever in a robot family :) complimento per te. if you'll come back you can tell more about "fura". have a nice trip! stay fit and healthy in london, have a lot of fun there with whole "advee team". bye largo

[Petr Schreiber]

Thanks Largo,

the graphical interface for the main application is realised in C#, as it needs to run multiple threads at once.
On the other side the 3D Tombola mode is 100% ThinBASIC, I attach the screenshot.

It uses the actor/animator approach:

each digit is single actor, responsible for animating the digit
whole digit set is maintained by the animator - responsible for displaying set of digits correctly
the button at the bottom is again actor - responsible for drawing correct text for each of the supported languages and animation during click

The templates for both actor and animator code are shipped with ThinBASIC already, I really recommend them for bigger projects.

Regarding FURA, it uses the concept of wildcard #include to dynamically load any code modules to itself. They just have to satisfy simple interface, that means, exposing functions following some name and parameter pattern. Each module is responsible for discrete part - for example video subsystem, map subsystem and so on. The program itself checks wide variety of media. For XML parsing I found really great the ThinBASIC GRAB$ function, which allows to chop needed information quite comfortably.

The designer of 3D video again uses the code I published for all in the offscreen rendering article (http://www.thinbasic.com/community/content.php?31-Beyond-TBGL-Offscreen-rendering-why-and-how), while the animated elements are again combination of actor/animator template based objects. Whole GUI is realised via UI module. Screenshot is attached below.

Some parts of the project are kept "secret", but what is possible I try to expose to ThinBASIC users. For example TBGL coming in next ThinBASIC will contain little package of functions which I added based on the experience on the robot project.

The robot presented in London is actually already the second one manufactured, other robot brothers will hopefully follow during next year. We will see... keep your fingers crossed :)


Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Petr,

you did my day (also my month or my year) in many different ways.

Thanks a lot for all.
Eros

[Charles Pegge]

Well done Petr.

Best of luck for you and your team's brain-child! I only regret I live some 300 miles West of London, but I hope we get to hear about Advee on the media.

Charles

[Michael Clease]

Good news Petr,

Its Imogens 4th birthday on Saturday but I am in talks with the wife about visiting the museum on Sunday its only about 100 miles from my house, if I go my camera will be taking some snaps and perhaps some video on the Iphone.

Regards

Mike C.

[kryton9]

Have a nice conference in London Petr. Thanks for the information about tbgl_Advee.

I heard the Pink Panther is out and about an interested in a heist job at the Science Museum of London, better put Advee in Inspector Clouseau mode :)

Would love to see photos and vids of the event!

[danbaron]

I finally got to see the big version of the top left picture from, "Advee at POPAI" (first the little wheel kept spinning around and around - probably because of my slow connection).

You must be the mastermind, because, you're in the middle.

There's only 7 in the picture, I think someone is missing.

But, while everyone else is smiling at the camera, you're hiding behind Advee, and looking at the ground, like you're waiting to be shot.

Look below, that's your head behind Advee.

Most of those guys look like movie stars.

(I react the same way as you did in this instance, to any camera.)


http://advee.eu/gallery/popai/IMG_0803.JPG

[Petr Schreiber]

:)

Charles, I hope it will be covered in some online media. I also forgot to note that Oxygen is used in the statistics software for callback of the PDF generating API. So thanks to you as well!

Michael, I would be very happy if you could check the monster out! As I wrote earlier, I sadly won't be there, but would be nice if you could have a look (photos, videos would be great), I hope it will be interesting even for Imogene and your wife. I am a bit sad the Science Museum did not wanted Advee to have games on it for this specific event, as I think it could be fun playing on 19" touchscreen. It is the first case some of the clients refused games without seeing them first :cry:. I wrote them exclusively for Advee... But I think the other robots will grab the attention as well, some of them are very advanced.

I will contact my friend in London about how long they are staying with robot on Sunday, to make sure they won't depart too early or something.

Dan, well, with the time passed, I am mad at myself I damaged the photo with my "near death" expression :p. But the fact is I was really exhausted - POPAI was the first event with our robot (already year ago), and just thinking the software would crash there quite played with my nerves (the FURA check didn't existed at that time yet). Fact is I usually do not like to take photos too :)
You are right one person is missing, it is my friend Vítek. I think he was not in the country during that time, but we were in touch. His inpresence is second reason I do not like this foto that much.

Kent, the robot itself sometimes behaves like the Clouseau itself already hehe :P


Petr

[Charles Pegge]

Hi Petr,

Wow! An O2 compiler in the mind of Advee. Have you noticed any signs of Advee self-programming recently - a tendency to disobey orders? :)

The exhibition was featured yesterday in the PM program (BBC radio 4).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qskw


Use the iPlayer link for 30th November

The feature on Robotville is 43 minutes in.

Charles

[Petr Schreiber]

Have you noticed any signs of Advee self-programming recently - a tendency to disobey orders?
Since the beginning of the project :D

Thanks a lot for the radio link. The voice you hear at 0:43:21 is Advee's one, and as the moderator talks later, you can hear the robot speaking in the background.

The beast is out of cage each day till 4 PM. So far everything allright, the friend from London sent me photo of robotic hospital the organisers prepaired.


Petr

[LanceGary]

Well done Petr.

Best of luck for you and your team's brain-child! I only regret I live some 300 miles West of London, but I hope we get to hear about Advee on the media.

Charles

"I live some 300 miles West of London" - That mean Ireland?

Lance

[LanceGary]

Since the beginning of the project :D

Thanks a lot for the radio link. The voice you hear at 0:43:21 is Advee's one, and as the moderator talks later, you can hear the robot speaking in the background.

The beast is out of cage each day till 4 PM. So far everything allright, the friend from London sent me photo of robotic hospital the organisers prepaired.


Petr

It is a great achievement!

Would the robotic hospital be manned (sorry robotted) by robots?

Lance

[Charles Pegge]

Not quite Ireland, Lance.

Fishguard is one of the main ports for Ireland, and the crossing to Rosslaire is about 50 miles on the other side of the Irish sea. I hear the rumble of the Ferry's engines as I write.

Robots would not be safe in our damp salty atmosphere. Does the robot hospital offer effective treatments for rust? :)

Charles

[LanceGary]

Not quite Ireland, Lance.

Fishguard is one of the main ports for Ireland, and the crossing to Rosslaire is about 50 miles on the other side of the Irish sea. I hear the rumble of the Ferry's engines as I write.

Robots would not be safe in our damp salty atmosphere. Does the robot hospital offer effective treatments for rust? :)

Charles

Thanks for the information. I had never heard of Fishguard before, or of the battle of Fisguard where the french tried to invade in 1797 (the last time foreign soldiers actually landed in the UK).

What is the Silicon equivalent of rust?

Lance

[Charles Pegge]

This invasion was something of a farce. Perhaps they thought the Welsh would join forces with Napoleon against the English.

Rusty Silicon? I suppose that must be Silicon Dioxide (Quartz)

[matthew]

This morning on the BBC News the Robot Exhibition at the Science Museum was featured. Sadly Advee wasn't mentioned but you can watch the report here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15964170) on the BBC Website.

[Petr Schreiber]

Thanks Matthew,

well, the problem might be that Advee is present mainly in the entrance part - he is not here as exhibit, but as a worker.
He has map of the museum inside, some quiz and such. Although he moves in the environment completely autonomously, he has no other moving parts (except printer) to be "curious child proof". This fact might make him less attractive for photographers, but from our point of view this simplicity minimizes the risk of something broken.

I found Advee for 3 seconds :D on this video:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/12/welcome-to-robotville-population-20.html

(worth to see whole, iCub looks great, Advee since 02:00)


Petr

[kryton9]

Who's voice was that when Advee appeared Petr?

[Petr Schreiber]

Well, Advee's voice ;) The black elipses on sides of his head are actually speakers, so he can talk (and does all the time).

Advee can work both in speech synthesis mode, and in dubbed mode. The second one is better and it is the one used on most events, including the London, because it adds a lot to robots "personality".
We didn't wanted the stereotypical "robotic" voice, both because you cannot listen to it for too long (we tried), and also because with unique voice the bot is more memorable.
Advees voice (~1000 generic sounds + any number of even specific) is dubbed by Tom Frgala (to czech, slovak, english and german). Tom is both a doctor and rock star at the same time :) He is now into more metal side of music as well, you can see him singing here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWfDi8qk97k&feature=channel_video_title


Petr

[kryton9]

I liked that song and video Petr. He does a good job as Advee's voice too. I think it was a good idea to use a human voice as you guys did. Robotic voices are nice, but can get tiring as you guys noticed.

[ErosOlmi]

How is going in London?

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Eros,

the action went fine, without any issues, Advee recently returned safely directly to other event here at home.
The biggest challenge for the Advee was to survive attack of the kids, which were very ... explorative :D

As Advee #2 and his older brother had lot of work to do this week, I didn't have a chance to check out the photos yet. I will try to do so tomorrow and post some here as well :)


Petr

EDIT: Few photos attached, captured in low light using phone so not that great quality