libbybot_eleven

Eleventh incarnation of libbybot, a cheapo, remotely-posable presence robot using webRTC and a Raspberry Pi, currently living in an IKEA lamp

Contains full instructions and code.

The idea is that you run a headless browser on a Raspberry Pi in the lamp, and connect to it remotely via a laptop or phone using a browser (Chrome or Firefox).

You need to do the server part of this first, then set up the arduino and pi. Construction instructions are in doc

What you'll need:

• Time: this takes a few hours at least even if you know what you are doing. It's not a quick project.
• Raspberry Pi 3 (other versions don't have the oomph to run chromium and do video, though they can do audio, if you don't want to "see").
• an official Raspberry pi power cable - we're using a lot of amps! else you may get strange outages.
• IKEA EXPRESSIVO lamp (discontinued, but most people have one at home, ask around). Or this (thanks Barnoid!) looks very similar.
• long (45cm) Raspberry Pi camera cable
• Raspberry Pi camera
• a Sennheiser USB speaker / mic
• 2 x 9g servos, small as you can get them (e.g.). The blue type are the ones you need - the black ones are fractionally too long.
• a tiny breadboard
• 6 x MM jumper cables
• 3 x MF jumper cables
• Arduino nano (e.g. a clone)
• an old CD or a custom laser cut shape - and 6 x 3mm diameter ball barings
• little rubber feet (e.g.)
• 1 thin small cable tie
• two pieces of 2cm x 1cm x 3mm (or 1 x 5-6mm) plastic or something equally tough
• two M2 plastic bolts

• Something to cut holes in the lamp's plastic like a dremel (you can just about manage with a hacksaw and drill, but it's messy) plus suitable eye protection
• a hacksaw
• a phillip's head screwdriver
• a gluegun
• a vice
• a tape measure

and, once you're up and running

• a friendly helper in the remote place where you want to be, to plug the lamp in

The only really expensive thing is the speaker / mic. If you're going to use it seriously, this is the most important bit. I've tried a Jabra for this purpose but they are unreliable, I'm guessing they have heavier power requirements than the Sennheiser. The Sennheiser works really well - the best I've come across for this sort of thing.

Of course you don't have to use an IKEA ESPRESSIVO lamp. This project originally started off much more like a picture frame - you can see the pictures here - but it's hard to fit the speaker into some sort of sensible shape. My robot research has shown that showing my face to the participants of a teleconference is not necessary as long as I can hear, speak, see and move a little (in that order).

More on how to actually fit it into the lamp is in doc.