Progress of BASE.001: A Self-Taught Humanoid Project.

Progress of BASE.001: A Self-Taught Humanoid Project.

UPDATE 2021/04/24: the robot went crazy while on the testing bench and it bent the metal brackets on the legs again... Calibrating the servos each time the frame gets deformed isn't gonna work in the long run so now I'm forced to switch to 3D printed brackets for the motors. Code won't be updated until then, but I hope to publish the latest working code for you all. (github and project documentation at end of post)

As of this post, BASE.001 is able to automatically get back up when it detects that it tipped over (both front and back recovery is possible). Walking code hasn't changed for a while, as I'm learning how to make my servo controller "non-blocking" so I can read data from the IMU and react to it in real time.

Major changes from the last time I posted are:

• ESP8266-based board instead of a Mega (previously I did use it, but now it's way more integrated)
• Wifi monitoring with Blynk + local server. Uses the Blynk app to monitor data from robot realtime (no controls yet)
• More 3d printed parts (handle, legs, arms)
• Soldered battery supply (no more bare wires just waiting to short!)
• Removed Bluetooth for now.

In the future I hope to 3d print the whole body, as while the metal frame is a great starter kit, I've realized that it's too heavy for the servos to handle, and since the included metal brackets isn't the best quality (it bends in all the wrong places), calibrating and using the robot is not easy. I would also like to get new servos, preferably some "smart servos" that has a encoder built-in. Also a Raspberry Pi 4 or a NUC to power it, as I want to ultimately integrate this with ROS and other utilities that require a "computer".

Here's some documentation for anyone who's interested in the project and current progress: https://bit.ly/base001_proposal

I'm also slowly publishing my code on Github as well. At this time, it only has a old, non-working code, but I'll update it soon, maybe 😅: https://bit.ly/base001_repo

Hope this inspires people to make complex stuff!

[Original post on Apr 23, 2021 6:20PM PST on Facebook]