Size: (weeks of effort)
Summary:
Modify the Cubetto firmware to speak each command as the program is run.
Details:
The Cubetto robot hardware is based on Arduino and its firmware may be modified using the Arduino IDE.
"Cubetto Tutorial | Update Firmware" video from Primo Toys
Resources
- Repo with Cubetto firmward source code: https://github.com/simonbates/cubetto
- Contains files retrieved from the Google Drive location referenced in the video above: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0CGyWe9uilVc0Nycms2QnFJOTg/view
Library suggested by Primo: https://github.com/going-digital/Talkie
- An alternative to using a text-to-speech library would be to record and play back samples of the words "forward", "left", "right" – we would store the sample data in the firmware
Hardware
The video above says to install support for Genuino Zero (now "Arduino Zero" that the legal battle is resolved between arduino.cc and arduino.org):
Arduino Zero specs:
- Microcontroller: ATSAMD21G18, 32-Bit ARM Cortex M0+ at 48 MHz
- Flash Memory: 256 KB
- SRAM: 32 KB
Microcontroller on Cubetto board says:
- Atmel
- ATSAMD21
- G18A-U
- 1810 D ARM
- 1810PKY TW
Potential Modern Arduino Zero Equivalent: MKR Zero
- "The MKR ZERO brings you the power of a Zero in the smaller format established by the MKR form factor."
- https://store.arduino.cc/usa/arduino-mkrzero
- https://www.buyapi.ca/product/arduino-mkr-zero-i2s-bus-sd/
Acceptance:
- The Cubetto operates as before but with the addition of speech output
- It is possible that the speaker on the Cubetto board is unable to reproduce speech and an alternative would be to try sounds (beeps) of different patterns and/or pitches
Issues:
- Arduino Zero does not support <avr/io.h>, which is used for Talkie library