from Tulane University in CompSci u 8 years at Nortel u Developer on SMS (aka Text Messaging) u Found love for automation u 1 year at failed startup (checkbox met) u 9 years at Yahoo u Worked in DC/Network/Video/LiveStream automation u Broadcast Obama inauguration with 100k streams u 2 years at Microsoft u Hired as Technical Evangelist now Cloud Solution Architect
u https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9305352/ u Built u Electronic Applause-o-Tron u LEGO Train set around my office u Whiskey Chandelier u Multiple Trebuchets u Organized u Board Member of TheLab.ms (Local Makerspace) u LEGO Contest for Texas Society of Architects u SlingFest (Local version of Punkin’ Chunkin’) u Classes u “How to solve a Rubik’s Cube” u “Kubernetes and Waffles”
electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. u Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online. You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board. u Benefits u Easy to understand and create u Cheap-ish u Good IDE u Write code in C/C++ u Large ecosystem u Works with Azure IoT u Many I/O ports
Pi is a series of small single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries u Benefits u Ports: USB, HDMI, SD Card, Audio jack u Cheap-ish u Can run Linux, BSD, Win10 IoT Core u Write code in whatever u Full networking, CPU, Memory stack u Works with Azure IoT u Downsides u Fewer I/O ports u Less focused on motor controls
valley suggests humanoid objects which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit uncanny, or strangely familiar, feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers.
valley suggests humanoid objects which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit uncanny, or strangely familiar, feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers. u Surprise! Same goes for paperclips
interact with LEGO power supplies. u LEGO Motors Uses 9V. USB uses 5V u LEGO connectors have weird wiring u Whitepapers have been written on LEGO Motor specs u https://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ece480/capstone/fall10/group02/do c/Brouker%20Application%20Note.pdf u Cabling is not standard
Good for broad movements u Apply voltage -> turn left/right u Can control torque u Pulsate back and forth u Stepper motors – Good for fine movements u Apply voltage -> go to position X u Use Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM) for communication u Cannot control torque u Able to stay completely still
Text to Speech u Speaker Recognition u Speech Translation u Vision u Video Indexer – Used for my Ring Doorbell u Face Detection u Image Classification – Used for Whisk(e)y recommendation u Knowledge u Search u Language
is a DC-to-DC power converter that steps up voltage (while stepping down current) from its input (supply) to its output (load). u TL;DR: Convert -2.5V to 2.5V to 0V to 5V
u Audio splitter wasn’t working (reduced current by half) u Wasn’t easily portable u Took 5-10 minutes to hook up each time u Arduino is powered by USB connected to computer u Sometimes drew too much current (potential laptop killer) u Flakey results
online and offline engines u Microsoft Bing, Google, IBM, Snowboy, CMU Sphinx u Combined with Snowboy, does a good job of capturing speech u PR to Replace Bing Speech API with Azure Speech API u https://github.com/Uberi/speech_recognition/pull/389 u https://github.com/Uberi/speech_recognition u Tried offline T2S. u Took about 1 minute for 5 second audio clip u SaaS model is the way to go!
Google h/w for audio u Use Azure PaaS for speech u I2C for Motor control u Raspberry Pi for orchestration u Decoupled laptop from RoboClippy u Power + Control (ssh + python) is now remote u 5 easy-to-connect wires (4 for I2C, 1 USB for power) u Written in Python now OSS u https://github.com/lastcoolnameleft/robo-clippy
for motor power u 2 wires for controller power u 2 wires for controller signals u RaspberryPi u Listens on microphone u Uses speaker u Coordinates with Azure Cognitive Services
Will RoboClippy become Skynet? u Coordinate with MS Marketing? u Do I need to replace Google AIY Voice kit or is the inter-op cool? u Do I integrate LUIS for NLP?
RPi, Arduino, Sound, NLP, T2S, S2T, I2C, PWM u Builders love a challenge u LEGO RoboClippy skeleton was done in a few hours u You have more resources available than you expect u People are both horrified and excited about Clippy’s resurgence u Embrace it