16 Jan. 2009

GOALS:

- Brainstorm and select one idea

- Write up basic functions and material list

Brainstorming:

1. Memory keyboard hand: construct a hand that can "remember" the way a melody was played through usage of distance sensors (also known as toilette sensors) . Once the hand remembers the melody taught to it by someone at the keyboard, it can then play the piece as a duet with a person!

2. Children's interactive game board: construct a game board with engineered game pieces. This idea was not fully developed.

3. Thomas the train engine: construct the Thomas train engine with Lego pieces; build in sensors to have the machine be able to interact with children.

4. Cookie Monster with cookie jar: Construct the Cookie Monster with Lego and stuffing. Include sensors and his cookie jar to interact with children. Possibly also build a Lego Big Bird and have the two characters interact via two PicoCrickets.

5. Circus Scene: Construct scenes such as a lion and his tamer, hit-the-bell-game, water gun game, and wire-walker.

We decided to go with idea number four: Cookie Monster and his Cookie Jar. Its basic functions are as follows:

 

*The monster will bobble its head up and down as if it's trying to take a nap. The napping motion is disturbed when yelled at or when a person opens the cookie jar lid without shaking his hand or stroking his neck. We plan to also play a clip of the actual cookie monster's voice speaking something along the lines of "don't take my cookies!" We also want play a lullaby on the background to "induce" the monster into a deep slumber.

Materials*:

- Fleece

- Cookie Monster Plush

- Polyester filling

- Poster board

*We made plans to purchase materials over the weekend to begin construction on Monday.

20 Jan. 2009

GOALS:

- Begin writing the code for Cookie Monster

- Construct the monster's skeleton

Code Writing:

We initially wanted to use on HandyLogo and one PicoCricket to construct this project. However, we soon realized that the inside of the monster must be able to communicate with the inside of the cookie jar (see the chart below for detailed function list). When writing the code on PicoCricket, everything was generally easy to create. The most difficult part was writing the code for the relationship between two PicoCrickets. Below is the specific relationship we wished to construct between the two PicoCrickets.

Construction:

The biggest challenge is to create a motion module with Lego that can not only mimic a bobbling motion of the monster's neck, but also strong enough to raise the weight of the entire head. After further consideration, we found that the plush we purchased over the weekend is not fit for the motion module we have in mind. The current plush had a very small head with a stiff and overly exaggerated mouth. We decided to go on the first craft store-run today to buy a new monster body. At Toys 'R Us, we saw a Cookie Monster towel set that had just an empty head of the monster made. The rest of the body was one giant blue towel - perfect for hiding our engines and PicoCrickets. This should work better for our motion module. (see gallery for pictures of the motion module for the neck).

21 Jan. 2009

GOALS:

- Finish making the skeleton

- Perfect code and trobleshoot

Construction:

We finished skeleton for the monster including the motion module, cookie jar, and the platform with four wheels for the monster to "back away" from potential cookie-takers. The motion module for the monster's neck is modeled after the "chomper". We extended the idea for the "chomper" further to accommodate both sides of the head. The gearing constructed within the motion module made it possible so that we only needed one motor to run the entire module. Gearing was also used for the wheels built on the bottom of the monster. Considering the size and weight of the monster, we decided to use a gear ratio of 9:1 to increase torque.

Code and testing:

We also finished writing most the code today without too much trouble. However, we did not get enough time to conduct testing on the code we wrote but the different parts of the code are working reliably.

22 Jan. 2009

GOALS:

- Stuff our monster

- Test run and troubleshoot

Construction:

The hardest part of the stuffing process was attaching the head onto the motion module. We decided to glue a rectangular board onto the module to help strengthen the structure. Once we glued the monster's head onto its skeleton, we had make a few more modifications to accommodate for the weight of his head.

Trouble shooting:

We ran into several problems today while running our code its entirety:

1. While the cricket inside the jar can correctly send out signals to the other cricket, but the jar cricket does not know when to stop sending those signals. We made the mistake of writing a level trigger when an edge trigger would have been more appropriate,

2. We initially placed the sound sensor inside our monster's moth. Unfortunately, the sound of the neck motor was already loud enough to trigger the actions associated with the sound sensor. To fix this problem, we changed the location of the sound sensor to the front of our cookie jar. We also had to change the neck motor to an older version to produce quieter sounds.

 

Jenny Poon (2011) and Serena Zhan (2011)