Abbott: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:41, 31 March 2026

Abbott Design page

Abbott is a web-controlled, articulated octopus that responds expressively to emojis in a zoom chat. It is named in honor of one of the tentacled aliens in Arrival.

This is a design page for the general conceptualizing/exploring of possible mechanisms/designs for Abbott. Please feel free to edit, nothing is set in stone. Any trouble with the wiki (it's new and has not been put through its paces), please write alex@alexhornstein.com / 401.688.0489 and I'll fix it ASAP.

Distributed prototyping philosophy

The idea here is to have people in different locations collaboratively develop hardware approaching the speed of software. The things which enable this are:

everyone has a minimal, common set of materials
all developers can access a 3D printer
the parts are designed with the constraints that you can make them work with the common materials
All developers working on this get a complete, working thing when they're done

I put a bit of thought into a bill of materials, trying to keep it as cheap and as complete as possible. If you're not comfy improvising with hardware, just buy the stuff and it'll work for you. If you are comfy improvising with hardware, pick and choose as you see fit. Take a look at the spreadsheet below and let me know what you think. This is still a rough revision, but I think it's within ~80%

Common Bill of Materials (for rapid MVP prototyping in different places)

Brain

I think a pi zero 2W is a good brain -- it is a linux-based system, making it easy to use software libraries to plug into stuff like the zoom API, and can also control low-level things like servos and LCD screens

Body

I don't have a design yet for the body, but I like the idea that it should be 3D printable and fit on the smallest printer bed that any collaborator has. I forget if the recurse printer is an A1 (250 x 250mm bed) or an A1 mini (180 x 180mm bed). Anyone know?

I'm kind of imagining a body like some sort of framework, roughly like a menorah but pointing towards you. Also all the candles are tentacles. It's not a perfect simile.

Tentacles

Well, that's why we're on this site. This is a wiki for an open-source 3D printed tentacle device that I think we can adapt to this. The tentacles are a clever, living hinge design that pops off the printer in one piece, and they articulate in just one axis. There's also a hole running through the center of the tentacle which can be used to run, say, an LED light or another servo for the tentacle tip.

The tentacles are cable-driven mechanisms. The "spine" is the living hinge part that's moving, and that blue thing is a tensioning cap which lets you easily adjust spring tension in the tentacle.. The spine is threaded like a big bolt, and the tensioning has internal threads like a big nut. More details/files/3D models on the design page. The spine also has two holes that run all the way through on either side, and those are for running the string which puppeteers the spine.

On the other end of the pipe, there is a capstan -- this is like a drum, and a piece of non-stretching string runs from one end of the spine, down through the hole on that side, wraps around the capstan a few times, and then goes back through the other hole in the spine, before getting tied off at the tip.

It's one of those things where a picture is worth a thousand words

In the manual version, when you turn the handle one way or the other, it pulls the string and the tentacle tentacles. For Abbott, I think we could basically put a servo on the capstan, get rid of the pipe, and make the base of the octopus something that has many pipe-like appendages, where we can put the

Eyes

I think it would be good to have expressive LCD eyes. These are cheap, round LCD displays that run for ~$7 a pop on amazon, and we could presumably drive them with a raspberry pi via SPI.

For ~6x more money, they make some eyes with built-in ESP32s, so they have a standalone way to control them over wifi, and need no wiring. It's tempted and very modular, it's just a difference of $7/eye vs $23/eye

WDYT?

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 === Body ===
 I don't have a design yet for the body, but I like the idea that it should be 3D printable and fit on the smallest printer bed that any collaborator has.  I forget if the recurse printer is an A1 (250 x 250mm bed) or an A1 mini (180 x 180mm bed).  Anyone know?
+I'm kind of imagining a body like some sort of framework, roughly like a menorah but pointing towards you.  Also all the candles are tentacles.  It's not a perfect simile.
 === Tentacles ===
 Well, that's why we're on this site.  This is a wiki for an open-source 3D printed tentacle device that I think we can adapt to this.  The tentacles are a clever, living hinge design that pops off the printer in one piece, and they articulate in just one axis.  There's also a hole running through the center of the tentacle which can be used to run, say, an LED light or another servo for the tentacle tip.
+[[File:Dipstick.gif]]
+The tentacles are cable-driven mechanisms.  The "spine" is the living hinge part that's moving, and that blue thing is a tensioning cap which lets you easily adjust spring tension in the tentacle.. The spine is threaded like a big bolt, and the tensioning has internal threads like a big nut.  More details/files/3D models on the [[Open-Source Design page|design page]].  The spine also has two holes that run all the way through on either side, and those are for running the string which puppeteers the spine.
+On the other end of the pipe, there is a capstan -- this is like a drum, and a piece of non-stretching string runs from one end of the spine, down through the hole on that side, wraps around the capstan a few times, and then goes back through the ''other hole'' in the spine, before getting tied off at the tip.
+It's one of those things where a picture is worth a thousand words
+[[File:TrunkCam cross-section.png|800x800px]]
+In the manual version, when you turn the handle one way or the other, it pulls the string and the tentacle tentacles.  For Abbott, I think we could basically put a servo on the capstan, get rid of the pipe, and make the base of the octopus something that has many pipe-like appendages, where we can put the
 === Eyes ===
-I think it would be good to have expressive LCD eyes.
+[[File:Eyes.jpg|thumb|none]]I think it would be good to have expressive LCD eyes.  These are [https://www.amazon.com/AITRIP-Display-Interface-240x240-Raspberry/dp/B0BL7G3HTP/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=3C9N783QQ710J&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rPMBCSoQfJOxcFlgJWeFwEYgZDE80VF5P3Z5qCqqyziLVO1t_-zrLwn_swgF-Krn_Ofgt98qNQdYwcWCw9107fGYTqhNltJHSIXHgJCB8RkdQCSZKuejWWjtkWsnyY-tAdGJzajR9pyWPtx8LGGV_sgO9nPs-zgB9RliLnHxuM-4JHFsyII6fLRv_I0MlXLotN2vOJZU1KO0yHmWP0JWOHdh7YJvIi5aLHl9QU7w3-M.UcP8I_4IzX2ksZ6TPqZ2zCw0aoKeRRAtKIQFXuQzHao&dib_tag=se&keywords=round+LCD&qid=1774969108&sprefix=round+lcd%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1 cheap, round LCD displays] that run for ~$7 a pop on amazon, and we could presumably drive them with a raspberry pi via SPI.
+For ~6x more money, they [https://www.amazon.com/ESP32-S3-Bluetooth-Dual-core-Processor-Connector/dp/B0CSYVVV2N/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2SK55AS637ZT1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tMVVGwMr6zelGhXcN5xe44damDLx_JtZ3U_73Sah8NQgyxemQ7Gy2LWPHcYxfCVyuUn8EC76vqzK0qTTlwhV2QOyfoO0-vEL2tWElXYRes90xiU5iC5oPmZW8mvwTIvl1Dy0goquWcUfmKsr58MF7XNo4Km28VGDF3YHgYTWtbCM-FG6xjga3V_KnpWzdPYuucos653QSmCAUkkwFaCSRmJgkuFxy4bvR-oNTjApUd1OhKImWvjSOzLxNDkddz53Z8MrgiscxNUEOH2MVY72Ea21OFYJlYuYiZM2dL4C5s0.HONyNz5RUEYplg47KQjdwvb0zlwhurIq8Sr0zedt1co&dib_tag=se&keywords=ESP32+round+LCD&qid=1774969274&s=electronics&sprefix=esp32+round+lc%2Caps%2C209&sr=1-2 make some eyes with built-in ESP32s], so they have a standalone way to control them over wifi, and need no wiring.  It's tempted and very modular, it's just a difference of $7/eye vs $23/eye
-There are some round LCD screens with SPI interfaces that seem to have good pi support, and then there are some with built-in ESP32s with wifi support.
+WDYT?
-[[File:Eyes.jpg|thumb]]