January with lots of progress!

The Nervo board is now available in the InMoov site Shop!!!!! (by the time I published this post, it was already out of stock, but you can backorder).

Nervo board, photo Leon Van der Host.

  After the Tech Fest in India, one of the first things I had to do was to fix a hardware issue on the InMoov 2 hand. One of the drivers had burned out because the hand stayed powered with the thumb stucked in a wrong position. The main reason was because a wire of the thumb got tangled inside the palm. I had to redesign the paths of that wire and re-print the parts.  
A few days ago, I received the Myo Thalmic Armband sent by Yohan of the FabLab Rennes and MHK(Bionico Nicolas Huchet). It was like receiving a Christmas present.  
Searching on the Net, I found a Arduino library that allows the Thalmic to communicate with the Arduino via the computer.  
I went on testing it and wrote a script, which first allowed me to use it with the InMoov finger starter (see third video) doing 3 small movements. The advantage of the Thalmic is the ease of use and set up. Once calibrated, you can remove it from your arm and put it back on (in the same position) it automatically works again, no need for re-calibration.  
The goal with the Thalmic was to be able to use it with the InMoov 2 hand. Ideally is to set various possible gestures. In fact the InMoov 2 has an onboard Arduino Nano that lets the user create any gesture desired and can be modified by just a plug and play USB connection to any Computer. The Thalmic uses Bluetooth to communicate, and as for today it cannot communicate directly with all Bluetooth devices of your choice, but it will and the plan is to have an onboard Bluetooth Arduino set in the hand to allow direct communication.  
I have been able to test the Thalmic also on the bicep muscle, it is more difficult to calibrate but I have been able to reproduce 3 differents set of gestures pretty reliably. Although the arm gestures to activate the sensor have to be rather large, which is a inconvenient if you want only the fingers of the InMoov 2 hand to be triggered.    
So this is huge progress!!! In the below video I'm using double taping fingers to "wake up" the Thalmic, but I can also do it without, which lets the hand constantly ready for any muscle activity.

What else happened this month:

Alessandro has borged into MyRobotLab the  Read More.................................................................

Makerfaire Roma and Rennes

This month was our second Makerfaire in Roma since I started the InMoov project. We got there just in time with the airplane to get ready with the robot for the next day opening. No problems with customs.

We were set along with the French Makerfaire team, Barbot, Bertier Luyt and Jean-Baptiste and 3DprinterX tattoo Machine.
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Alessandro Didonna was already on the set with his girlfriend, along with Bram Geenen of Wevolver. The location we had was perfect, a huge place with a lot of people passing through, not too much noise, which is good when you talk to the robots.
As planned, there was also Leon and Marten, that had a booth. Unfortunatly they were far away from us, and we only saw each at the end of the days when it was time for Pizza!!!
They had brought their DIY  Gimbal camera stand, a very well made Submarine (1m20) and the second version of the InMoov Nervo boards all ready and soldered to be mounted on the Arduino boards. Alessandro also got a kit. They offered me for my birthday an extra Arduino Mega board!!! Thanks guys!
I bet when the builders are going to see those picture, they are going to ask when are they going to be for sale... Sorry for the delays, but I'm not the only one in the loop on this. :)



 








Read more............................................................

InMoov on ARTE TV, Futurmag

In French:




 In German:



This is a interview given to 3DNatives, also in French.
Sorry for all the english readers, but France is my home country and I'm happy to see french people finally discover 3D printing and what goodies it can bring!!
 http://www.3dnatives.com/robot-humanoide-inmoov/




Read more.................................... Oh no sorry, this time there is nothing more to read, but if you want read other things......................