So, have you heard of the Omnibot? Well! Any kid from the 80's will remember how amazing this robot was. For you young kids, this robot was released in the early 80's by Tomy. The robot was "programmable", in the sense that the actions were recorded to a casette tape. As you operated the robot over its remote control, the casette would record tones for each action. When the tape was played back, the tones would control the robot.
It also had a microphone and speaker in the remote and robot, so you could spy on your family. Man, I really wanted one as a kid! But now that I have made this robot even better, anyone would want one :)
So, I found this fully operational Omnibot on Ebay for $105 USD. Came with the tray and remote too! And, you know me! I couldn't wait to hack into this toy and make it come alive! The shell of this toy made an awesome home for my servos and the robot controller.
So here is what I did, and you can too. Hopefully this instructable will give you the ideas and confidence to begin hacking your own robots. If not, check out my other instructables and you'll certainly get an overdose of robot hacking!
The robot is currently using EZ-Builder and the EZ-SDK (available at http://www.ez-robot.com ). I have added voice recognition, camera recognition and autonomous exploring to the robot. The camera recognition detects faces, skin tone, motion and objects by color. The voice recognition allows remote control commands to be verbally spoken.
Goal
To make a robot pet! So currently I have this robot cruising around my house in autonomous mode. The personality I wrote for it does a bunch of different things, randomly. The robot will follow colors, follow motion, sit there and look around, bleep and make interesting noises, wander around on its own, or listen to voice commands. He never gets stuck with the new autonomous code and HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor.
What I Used:
- •1 x EZ-B Robot Controller http://www.ez-robot.com
- 1 x Servo for head http://www.hvwtech.com/products_view.asp?ProductID=878
- 2 x Servos for arms http://www.hvwtech.com/products_view.asp?ProductID=878
- 1 x Omnibot shell
- 1 x Wireless Camera http://www.ebay.com
- 1 x EZ-Builder Software http://www.ez-robot.com/EZ-Builder/
- 2 x Bright Blue LEDs
- 2 x QR111D Edge Detectors
- 1 x micro servo for Ping Sensor
- 1 x HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Ping Sensor
- 1 x x Sparkfun TB6612FNG HBridge Motor Controller
Source Codes
There are two ways to control your robot. If you use the EZ-Builder, then you will not need to write any code because it is a graphical interface for controlling the components. If you use the EZ-SDK, then you can customize every action in your .Net application. I released both projects for you to use :)
- EZ-Builder Project: http://www.ez-robot.com/Projects/Files/108/omnibot.ezb
- C# Source Code: http://www.ez-robot.com/Projects/Files/108/robot%20-%20omnibot%20src.zip
Tools:
- Dremel
- Hot Glue Gun
- Soldering Iron
-
Plyers, Screwdriver
Video #5 demonstrates his observing ability by tracking motion, colors and shape edges. His AI observes and really gives the impression that he is enjoying the road trip... We drove 2 hours north to visit a friend, and he really enjoyed himself. Can you tell? :)
Video #4 demonstrates the enhanced motion tracking algorythm I just finished. In this video he is watching TV. There are some colors and shapes that he learns to like and will take snapshots of them. After a day of autonomous living, my drive is full of some funny photos!!
Video #3 demonstrates the autonomous mode and how he navigates without getting stuck. This is one of the modes he can randomly choose. While in this mode, he also may follow colors (red green or blue)
In video #2, I disect the head and demonstrate the motion and color tracking.
This is video #1 where you may watch the assembly and modifications necessary to get Omnibot up and running :)
Remove these ads by
Signing UpStep 1Take Apart the Shell
Yes, sorry. You will need to take this cute little guy apart. And you'll also need to throw out a few things, like his brain!! EAK!
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |























































I would like to keep to arduino related controllers for this project if I can.
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9896
Also, what did you use for power? "official" replacement batteries are all in the 6V 4.5amp range but I think I would prefer to just use C or D batteries because they are easy to find. I'm thinking 5 should do the trick and get me in the range of both the original spec and what the arduino wants, around 7V?
Any info would be appreciated!
Thanks!
;)
i dont care what he looks like
Let me know when you start getting into modding yours. It will be neat to see what you come up with also :)
a. Be written in C (Arduino is programmed in C)
b. Be compatible with Arduino
I had this nightlight that I was trying to build...it was written in C++...I changed the pin outs from the At tiny13 to something in Arduino. Didn't work out great...I have a busted Arduino...I finally got it up and running again after 3 weeks.
do you know where i can find a remote for the omnibot 5402
ive been looking everywhere on the net
I recently bought an omnibot on impulse off ebay but didn't read the add through. Bacicly I bought an omnibot with no remote or tray. I just wondered now that you have modded your onmibot would you be interested in selling your remote and tray?
the microcontroller world is easy or hard. depends on the platform you chose. i use the ez-robot project so its obvoiusly really easy: www.ez-robot.com check it out :)
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=tomy+omnibot&_sacat=0&LH_Auction=1&_sop=15&_odkw=tom+omnibot&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313