BubbleBoy v1
@ September 11, 2008
This is my emotional robot, BubbleBoy. Briefly, BubbleBoy was created to demonstrate emotions and their applications in robotics. BubbleBoy has a food and water level, and when averaged out, a health level. The mood is determined by the health level. There are 10 moods, each of which BubbleBoy has a little ‘action set’ with. This is to try to get more food! After the ‘action set’ is over, you can feed it or give it water. When the food/water button is pressed, it increases the food/water level by a random int in between a lower bound and upper bound. Also, when BubbleBoy finishes three ‘action sets’, it becomes more hungry and thirsty - thereby decreasing the food/water levels. So, BubbleBoy is similar to a ‘tamigotchi’. It was fun to make- BB has 2 servos, 2 DC motors, 2 buttons, 4 LEDs, 1 LDR, and 1 LCD. All of these are controlled by the Arduino board.
Here are pictures of the food and water buttons:
~ 
Here's the LCD that displays the Mood, Health, Food level and Water level:
Here's a picture of BubbleBoy's Hula Ring! This can actually jiggle around
The source is open, so you can download it here. :)
Here's the circuit diagram:
If you want to see more pictures of BubbleBoy, check out my site :D
@ Tue, 2012-01-31 00:39
I like this little fellow a
I like this little fellow a lot. Gold star for imagination and a smiley-face for cuteness.
(Oh, I don't see the LCD in the schematic, but presume it ties to other arduino leads.)
@ Wed, 2012-01-11 02:58
I like the concept of this
I like the concept of this robot. But I object to most fluffy pink things. -lol
@ Thu, 2008-10-02 15:50
sorry but....
i dont meen to be mean but i think i seen this on tv or something. they made something like this to teach children to make direct eye contact. what i meen is it had sencers in its face if it dosnt detect that anyone is looking at it it will dance and move around. it was made to teach childer to keep eye contact when there parents were talking to them or something like that. but im just saying it looks like what i seen it dosnt meen yours does they same as it.
but it does look cool the one i seen was jsut plain and yellow (i think it was yellow) but you added things that ar eye catching.
@ Fri, 2008-09-12 15:48
Other members have already
@ Mon, 2008-09-15 15:10
Thanks! I'm quite noob too.
@ Mon, 2008-09-15 17:47
As placed, it can't help.
@ Mon, 2008-09-15 23:26
Exactly. Sorry for not
Exactly. Sorry for not clarifying in my original post. When you stop the motor and the magnetic field collapses, it can/will generate a high voltage spark that can destroy the transistor. To prevent this, you mount a clamping diode as robologist described.
This applies everywhere you use a coil. That is, for example, motors, solenoids and relays
@ Tue, 2012-01-31 00:43
No, actually, while many
No, actually, while many people put it directly across an inductive load, the reverse voltage transients will bypass the transistor, protecting it. The diode provides a low resistance path to ground/supply compared to the higher reverse breakover needed for the transistor, so it will work fine as she has it for transistor protection.
The only drawback is that putting it across the transistor can still allow a power supply spike, which could affect the other components, but if the power is from batteries, they will have a great dampening effect on an spikes hitting the supply, so no problem overall.
(Hope that clarifies things.)
@ Fri, 2008-09-12 16:13
If it's a protection diode,
@ Fri, 2008-09-12 09:29
Great idea, great color.
Great idea, great color. Just out of curiosity, is this part of the EPGY study?
I like the effort you've put into trying to show emotions without trying to copy human behavior. Is this a finished project? Is it the first in a series? When does the blue version arrive?
/ vzz-clck-"Maneuver"