A major milestone has been reached! The computer team has made noteworthy progress in enhancing our speech recognition and animation system, and have combined their work with the mechanical and electrical team using real production hardware! Here’s a quick rundown on what they’ve been up to.

Using advanced signal processing, our show controller automatically detects the timestamps of consonants in the spoken word audio for each parrot. implementation of the control system. This involves integrating physical servo motors, a central processor, and various mechanical systems crucial for the functionality of the final product.

To validate the system, the team ran the speech processing algorithm on the actual show control hardware. This allows us to test audio playback, motion controls, and motor synchronization outside of just simulations. This testing led to a great value-add as well: Our computer team also introduced randomized animation sequences to the show software, which provides a unique experience for every show, ensuring that our feathered friends are as lifelike as their inspiration. Of course, we will continue to refine both the speech recognition and animation systems as our final product takes shape, and we can’t wait to share more of our manufacturing journey ahead!

This week, our team gathered in the Herbert Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence to meet with a panel of UF faculty for an evaluation of our project. The Qualification Review Board, as its called, serves as a check-in to ensure our team is on track to meet our goals and deliver the best product we can. Our team’s review board consisted of three experienced mechanical engineering faculty members who gave us both praise and constructive criticism.

Since the Spring semester began, our team has been working hard to begin final manufacturing. A few small delays throughout the previous month have added up to a larger issue, but it’s nothing that we can’t solve without some careful planning and hard work. Every big project is bound to hit a speedbump, and we’re ready to adapt to the challenge. We’re working diligently with our partners at the HWLEE Open Prototyping Lab, our IPPD Lab, and Pinecrest Gardens to resolve issues before they occur. For instance, while motor testing is underway, we are preparing an alternate vendor and manufacturer to take over in case our testing uncovers issues with the parts we have. We’re also moving forward with parts of our project that aren’t impacted by any delays, such as scenic finishes. This will allow us to get ahead and save time in the future.

This week, Parrotronix kept busy with mechanical and scenic design, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have some fun! Members of the mechanical and electrical teams visited Home Depot to familiarize ourselves with how some of the standard materials will appear in relation to each other. It’s one thing to see schedule 40 pipe in a 3D model, but it’s totally different when comparing proportions in the real world.

We worked together on the base and perch structure that will eventually support our animatronics, which will appear similar to cypress knees. We also took some time to investigate the rockwork finishes available, and compared them with both the natural and artificial geology present at Pinecrest Gardens.

We also spoke with some industry experts who work with leading animated figure manufacturers. We gained valuable insights into how the manufacturing process works, as well as some of the innovative techniques some of the most advanced animated robotics employ to achieve realistic, reliable motion. Although we aren’t producing animatronics worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, we’re still striving to implement this important advice in our control algorithms and mechanical interfaces. With all of this work, we’re prepared just in time for our first meeting with a Qualitative Review Board from IPPD for some valuable engineering feedback.

As we approach manufacturing, our team is still hard at work finishing our mechanical and scenic design work to prepare for sourcing. Although most of our team is proficient in SolidWorks, sometimes a good, old-fashioned cardboard mockup is the best way to effectively communicate our ideas.

The mechanical team is deep in final calculations to verify our designs for production. While there aren’t too many details ready to share, we’re excited to get working in UF’s manufacturing lab. On the other side of the room, the computer team has set up our Nvidia Jetson Nano and is running through the initial programming prototype that was created last month. Now that we’re out of simulation and on real hardware, debugging and testing is much faster! The scenic team is making arrangements with our vendors to get sample swatches and materials sent to the IPPD labs. A busy week indeed!

As UF welcomes students back for the Spring 2024 semester, our team unexpectedly starts with weather resistance testing… but not for our animatronics!

Despite some severe weather and an active tornado near UF’s campus, IPPD kicked off its second semester this week! While the previous 13 weeks were all about designing and refining our product, this semester is all about delivery! Our team got to work right away, updating spreadsheets and project trackers to ensure we are sticking to the project roadmap. Currently, we’re only waiting on a few more mechanical details to be completed before manufacturing can begin! We can’t wait to see our project come to life this semester… in more ways than one!