Welcome to the new InMoov Website

As you can see InMoov is getting a new website. It has been a long hard work for the team of Quai Lab in Poitiers France, which remodeled, imported, modified, created this new interface. Big thanks to Sebastien and his co workers for this wonderful work.

Here is a list and pictures of all the things that happened since April:



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InMoov in New York

Come and see InMoov in New-York at the World Makerfaire this week-end.
I will be there along with MyRobotLab and WeVolver, Bionico.
We will have three InMoov robots displayed, lots of other projects with InMoov and of course a bunch of Makers and builders to talk to.

InMoov at the Bal of Robot

I have a lot to say but I can't find time to write this post.
So I will make it short.
I have been busy to a point of no return, hey!
-Working to create a logo for InMoov.
-3D printing the stomach parts, testing, modifying, reprinting and finaly assembling them.
-Organizing what will be coming next on InMoov.
-Searching how to create cheap, fast, reliable actuators to developp the legs.
-Getting the InMoov prosthetic hand to it's final result.(Not happy yet)
-Getting a serious power servo PCB board done in China with the collaboration of Leon and Marten (NL) -Organising with WeVolver the future of InMoov as a complete developpement plateform and producing low cost kits.  

Here is InMoov with his logo on the NEW stomach parts,







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Finger Printed at last

I was away for a while, and of course when I travel, I don't cary my 3D printer with me. Plus, being away in the desert makes it difficult to comuunicate with internet.
Since I released the finger prosthetic for Bionico, I was impatient to print it. 
Fortunatly Morris, on the other side of the Atlantic had his printer ready for testing. He was the first one to print the finger and got me some feedback. 
You can see his blog here
So I was designing on my computer in the desert and he was printing the parts along, and everytime some thing was not correct in my design, he would notify me and I could check the pictures posted on his blog to modify the design in consequences. This took us a lot of time after all. But we got to move on and thanks a lot to him. The three bellow pictures are from his blog:

                                      
                                         
                                                 
Being back from the desert, I was then able to print the finger. There was still things that were not correct. I also ordered another type of motor which is a 6V planetary gear motor with a ration of 154:1 from Pololu.
So the casing had to be redesigned again. There is a very small worm gear that actuate the finger and I printed it in ABS but it is definitly too fragile, so it either needs to be modified or printed in stainless steel. You can get it by Shapeways here.

I left both versions on Thingiverse because it can be handy for other projects.

With the servo Corona DS238HV use these files:
-FingerWormV1.stl
-ServoHolderV2.stl
-PhalangeV6.stl
-ActuatorsV3.stl
With the planetary gear motor use these files:
-FingerWormV2.stl
-MotorHolderV3mid.stl
-MotorHolderV3top.stl
-PhalangeV6.stl
-ActuatorsV3.stl

The planetary motor:
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1109
The dual driver DRV8833
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2130 
The Arduino card:
http://learn.adafruit.com/arduino-tips-tricks-and-techniques/arduino-uno-faq
Here is a video of the finger in action. The speed isn't really great, but it is a choice of planetary ratio I made for to get higher torque.

It was pretty hard to make that video, because the small wormgear breaks when the finger reach the end of it's run. Unfortunatly I haven't yet figured out how to set a time delay on my script and a reverse of polarity. Using DC motors and servos is not the same when it comes to create a script in the Arduino.

The big news:


InMoov is selected and invited for the European Makerfaire Edition in Roma. So I will be going to Italy and have the pleasure to meet all the italian and european geeks that attend this event. I hope to get some time to make the robot usable, it's going to be something to put the full InMoov in a suitcase.
Myrobotlab is also selected to attend the Makerfaire, Alessandro will be the Ambassador of MRL. Leonardo who has created a superheroe InMoov will attend the faire as well, hopefully his suitcase is big enough for to bring his robot. Leonardo his also working to make us a real website.

And Bionico, of course, is also selected for the Makerfaire, we are currently getting a hand ready for Nicolas. Hugues is hard at work on all the stage levels.
Here is a french article about us in LE MONDE newspaper.

Return to the source

Rennes, was the city of my grandparents. It was a long time since I wanted to go and visit this city, but somehow never got the occasion. It is definitly a city worth more than a two days visit. I found it very charming, these little streets become very full of life. 
On sunday morning it is very quiet and empty.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a Nicolas Huchet, Bionico who was interested in developing a prosthetic hand based on InMoov. 

 I had been already asked for a few other projects of this sort, but was a bit reluctant to go along. The main reason is because InMoov isn't conceived to be such device and could be a disappointment instead of something really helpful. It's all plastic, even if ABS can be used in many devices, once 3d printed it isn't has resistant as when it is injected. Also depending on how the hand is built and printed, the final product can be good or a bad.

I did explain most of my reluctance to him, but still he was ready to go on with the project.

Following this I got contacted by the LabFab of Rennes. As you maybe saw on youtube there is a InMoov builder, called Brancante, who's been very involved into testing a prosthetic with InMoov.

Putting them in contact was a logic thing, and of course they shared their different results.

Region Bretagne organized this week-end a big event pretty much like a MakerFaire. Imagine, Construis. Since Nicolas Huchet was going to present his Open Source prosthetic project during this event, Hugues du FabLab invited me to join them for two days to present and work with them.

It was very interesting, I got to meet a lot of people, some part of the projectand some others just discovering it. During the event I did my first Round table based on the OpenHardware subject in company of Nicolas Huchet. Other guests were there, SnootLab, Mutable, John Lejeune, Jimmy P Rodgers.

Being most of the time a bear in it's cave this was an interesting shot. Talking in a microphone to an assembly of people is something. I guess with practice it becomes easier with time. 

Hughes had been, during the previous days, working on a first prototype which was a real DIY hand with cables and wires. I think somehow it made it even more interesting to people because of it's intriguing appearance. Anyway the prosthetic was wired with myo electric sensors, and we got to test it on Nicolas. And it worked !

Of course the open close pattern movement was very simple and was working with a bit of latency.

Nylon threads used by Hugues were streatchable and thin, which didn't allow any grabing of things, but think of it. The InMoov hand was printed in a few hours, then servos were added with cables and then all wired to the Arduino with sensors and that's it.

I think if we work and develloppe the concept and design we can get a working Open source devise pretty fast, and transformable to particular needs. Don't misunderstand me, it's not going to be as good as the ILimb, but it can be very helpfull for those who can't afford to pay 25 000 euros for a prosthetic. 
The Makerfaire Tour bus was in Rennes for the occasion, they did an interview about the project.

Since the Nederlands I hadn't posted anything on my blog, because of a lack of time, but there has been a lot of things going on around InMoov though.

The major one, is the implementation of the i2C board in MyrobotLab by Grog. This is a major advancement because now I can hook up 16 extra servos per i2C board added to the Arduino.

So that means the eyes servos but also the jaw, and next the dorsale, hips, legs, feet.

It has been a 100% worky on the first test, Grog couldn't believe it

Then another test we did with Grog and Alessandruino was to test remote controlling the robot through the internet. Imagine this, Grog being in the US took control of the InMoov gestures in my workshop in Paris France. Totally amazing to see !!

We tried the same thing wth Alessandruino but somehow it didn't work. I think we had too many video instances working at the same time.

Next innovation, Jha in Australia has been working on a script to make the jaw work as the robot speaks. That's also cool ! Just uploading the python script into MRL and the robots could repeat the prewrote sentence and having is jaw working in accordance. It isn't perfect if you really focuse on the jaw, but once you get other body movements at the same time it is interesting. Some might see this as a bit uncanney. The script is available on MRL and I will make it available on the download tab.

Another new and interesting happening is, Leonardo from Italy who has been printing a super heroe InMoov :) He has proposed to work on the transfer of the blog data to a real site, so for that matter I bought the domain name:
InMoov.fr
Thanks to donators we will be able to host the site and create something more conventional for us.