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[Naoki]

Hi there!

I'm Naoki, 17 years old, informatic engineer student, DJ and... Well, fond of programmation and robotic!

When I discovered Pleo RB I was like... "Oh guy, that's too cute, and SOOOOO cool! I need one!" You see, feeling a bit alone in my student room with only my computer, lessons, music and cigarets, so a little robotic friend should be great (I'm not a lo life! That's just that I can't party and see my friends a lot this year, so much work for my project, all that stuff...)
Got plenty of ideas for improving him, and before buying anything or continue to dream, I decided to told experienced users first. But I think I'll buy one anyway, even if it is more limited than I expected.

First, I think i'm gonna change its biological internal clock, to fit better my student life. Feeding him around 7 or 8 PM is more practical for me then at midday, and also waking him around 6, for petting him a little before leaving. Is it possible?

I also imagined to create a dancing algorithme, with a simple BPM (Beats Per Minute) analysis with some kind of Analogic to Numeric conversion from it's sound sensor. You see, like shaking its head with the beat. Maybe also learning some songs after listening them a lot, and dancing more precisely on them, like knowing when the drop comes and taping its feet only after. That asks lot of technical questions to make it, like making OS Life read memorized files of already listened songs, write files with scripts (Song: Some Chords, BPM: 128, 1st drop: 1'37, break: 3'37 2nd drop: 5'07) -drop's when the music get harder, and break when it came back a bit slowly... For droping again!-, or knowing the resolution of the mic, if it can recognize a beat from the rest of the song, etc etc...
Linked with music, I also though about make him recognize styles of music, with the BPM, the height of the sound, if the song is regular or not, agressive or not, and making him like some styles (according to my feelings of course, but I'm minimale, transe and electro, so that's not too agressive for a baby Camarasaurus I think. It's not like Hard Rock or Acid Core )

I guess it has already been tried, but I'd though about face recognition, like remembering who's cool and who's not (who has put Pleo head down side, and also who has pet him a lot and feed him).

And making his behaviour a bit more... Mature. Not like other stupid agressive dino toys, but... Well, "You don't want to play with me? You serious? Don't want to talk to you anymore!" and then after a little time, you'll come pet it and it will want to play again, or not if you haven't been gentle enough before! (Crossed with the facial recogntion, It could be amazing!) (I don't want to make a badass Pleo , just make it a bit less gentle with people who haven't been )

Maybe ading a Yes/No/Don't know asking system, with memory like "Are you a boy Daud?" "Do you like Naoki? (Yes of course!)" "Do you like Marie? (No, she has squeeze me many times)" "Have you already eat today?" "Are you sick?" "Are you tired?". Of course, it won't talk for explaining why, it will just shake its head head up/down-right/left, but it will be according with its memory. And also when you'll ask him questions that it couldn't/didn't know the answer, it will just shrug, because I found stupid toys which always answer! That means of course, a little panel of question, recorded during programmation, but realistic answers about it's feeling and what he knows.

About questions, I also though about recognizing what I am doing, if it can, like "Is Naoki watching Game of Thrones?" and if he heard the credits, it'll answer positive (I guess in the other case, it will just shrug, he should hadn't recognize, so it'll be stupid to answer a categoric no). That means recording on its OS the conditions of answering, or a learning algorithm, like "Daud, what you heard is Game of Thrones credit".

I also have really impossible ideas, requiring adding some captors, like coughing when smelling cigaret smoke. That could be really fun but... Yeah, out of purpose.

Tell me what you think about it, what you think is possible, what is not, what has been already done, all that stuff  

Thank for reading and answering! Naoki

PS: I'm french, so please forgive my bad english and hoping I'm already understandable

[RedwoodsMama]

 Welcome to the forums, I will read over everything you said and get back to you. I am stressed today, so need to take my time to read it carefully but will. It is nice to have a new member, Talk to you soon and comments.

                  RWM

[Naoki]

Thanks, take care of you!

[InmemoryofRomeo]

I'm afraid the only one of those that is possible is changing the clock. All the others -may- be possible to some extent but it would be extremely limited and would require a great deal of simplification as well as requiring writing a whole new personality. You would find it a lesson in frustration, Pleo just was not meant to be extensively programmed.

The camera cannot detect faces. Only colours/simple patterns.
Pleo cannot determine old friends from new ones, there is no facial recognition.
Pleo cannot smell.
The speakers can only pick up sounds when absolutely still and they can't be complex.
Pleo doesn't have the capacity for responding to questions. The voice recognition is woeful.
Pleo cannot detect beats (he does however already respond to consistent loud noise).
Changing the default personality would require a ground up rewrite of everything.
Pleo's ability to learn is extremely limited, and based solely on preprogrammed 'skits'.

You just aren't going to get that from a $470 robot, try a Nao.

What you can do is shadow existing sounds and motion files to change the feel of the personality.
Utilize the camera to evoke a 'reaction' to certain colours.
Play really loud music and drop a Pleo next to the speakers.
Make skits or basic personalities with tools like MySkit and YAPT.

[Naoki]

No frustration, for sure, I told you from the beginning I din't really believe what I was saying.
And I also told you, I'm a future engineer. I am targeting working on video games, programmation and AI gestion, precisely. Ground up rewriting doesn't scare me, for sure, even if I had to rewrite everything! That's the deal I could say, I can't make the hardware, but if I could, I'll do it myself, from the very beginning
The idea was... Well, you have a cool robot, packed with sensors, motors, skin and a simple but cute integrated personality. Now you take inspiration from the personality which is already in... And you take control of everything. OS Life? OS Naoki in! No music recognition? Don't care, I've already create a software for it (a mask which lights up with the beat and adaptates its paterns with the sound). But the difference is that for my mask, I just get the signal from my computer, with a Jack cable. With Pleo it can't go this way, I have to work with speakers, and speakers aren't precise enough for it... Too bad. Same problem with the face recognition. It's a bit harder to program, I agree, but Friends in 4rd year have created a log too, for their final project. But they had a 720p camera...
About learning skits... That's precisely what I was thinking. I figured that I could create new skits, but evolutive ones, like an integrated skit editor, but that will need a very good sound captor and, as you've said, it seems to be impossible.
For the smelling sensor, I know pleo doesn't integrate one. If it has, I had this idea, but it hasn't so... Well  

Nao? I'm going to stop eating for a long time before having enough money for buying it!

Thanks for your very complete answer

PS: I found this. http://hackaday.com/2008/08/07/hacking-pleo-for-face-recognition-and-remote-control/ . I love those guys!

[InmemoryofRomeo]

I think you need to download the Pleo PrDK from Pleoworld, that will give you the starting point for what you can and cannot do with Pleo as is There are ways to implement something along the lines of what you want if you are willing to compromise and work to what Pleo has to offer. Which isn't much, but its there and cheap

PS. I hear you on the Nao! I'd have to stop eating for a year

[Crewella]

IMR pretty much has it covered! 

All I can add is that you can set your Pleo RB to 'noon' whenever you like - just choose a time that suits you.  I'm up late so mine are set to 'noon' at 4-5pm.  You can change it whenever you like, too.

[Naoki]

Oh men, one year? It'll make too weak, I'll be dead before buying my Nao!

After an enhanced search on the web, I found some really interesting stuff for modding Pleo. Actually, Pleo RB skin can me removed quietly easily, without external damage. Just some glue points, but it isn't too complicated to replace, so you could be able to mod it... Not easily, but, you won't destroye your Pleo!!

The Pleo RB processing unit is a Atmel ARM 7 (32 bit CPU), which is really really small, like 5*5*1mm. But today, Intel has created a far more powerfull unit, the Intel Atom, which isn't bigger than a 10cents piece (€) (it's a real 64 bits unit). Nearly the same shape. I also though about the NVidia Tegra 3 chipset, used on the most powerfull actual smartphone, which isn't big too, and should replace the NXP 32 bits ARM 7 GPU of our favorite dinosaure! Am I straight crazy?
For the camera, and the mics, it's like a kid game after changing CPU and GPU! Smartphones' mics actually have a really good resolution, and back cameras too! And just take a look at the Galaxy S3 camera! Even smaller then Pleo's one!
Pleo as an empty zone, on it's lower abdomen. Here's where you can put some technical aditionnal stuff, like new captors or an integrated flash memory! 64GB usb storage isn't bigger than a nail, that won't be a problem!

No problems for connecting enhanced captors to the CPU, the Intel Atom is a really open chip, and would be compatible with a lot of them, with some kind of hac... Help  

But after all that, it won't stay anything from the actual serial Pleo, exepted skull, some captors, motors and skin! But no problem! It will take time, but I guess it will be possible to recreate some alternatif OS, perhabs based on an Android 4.0 dev kit, with more functions, inspired anyway by the original Pleo behaviour. But all of this has a cost.
Pleo is 200€ in France. And an HTC One X, with the Tegra 3 chipset, high resolution camera and mics costs 300€. Also ad an unknown price for the Intel Atom (around 100€). Outch.

Keep this in mind. Maybe what I just said is not possible. Maybe it's really too hard to get it real for a first year informatic student like me. Actually, I know that it will unbelievable if all of these succeed, and if I can get a completely enhanced Pleo! But I think that should work on the paper so... Why not trying?

Tell me what you think about it. And call the lunatic asylum if you think you have to!  

Naoki

[InmemoryofRomeo]

Sounds pretty cool tome Innvo are you listening

Cyborg Pleo would be an interesting project, if all those are actually compatible...

[Naoki]

Ahah, not the only one excited! Sound good

Well, I don't know how sensors works, and I guess every sensor sent different signal, so that might be the most difficult part! But Android is a Smartphone OS, and most of smartphones uses light captor, IR, mics, speakers and cameras, so in some kind of way...
Anyway, using Pleo's motors is simple! The more tension grows, the more the articulation will go to his maximal position. I don't know how to  explain it correcly so I hope you understand what I mean!

But that's not the place for hardware! I'll create an other topic on the right category to develop it

(And don't laugh at me! Innvo told us to reprograme, mod and hack/f**k Pleo, so that's precisely what I want to do! I'm just a very obedient boy )

[kat]

Wow!  This all sounds very exciting   If you do attempt this please take lots of photos or videos step by step along the way.  If you managed to upgrade your pleos insides so that it could cope with more exciting programing I'm sure there would be plenty of us out here willing to give it a go too.  I'm not any good with programing as I've not ever tried that before but the pulling apart and putting back together I have done and it is not too hard as long as you are careful.  There is a tutorial thread on here for skin removal and neck cable repairs.  I am also very interested in any websites you have found with info on hacking or opening up a pleo so please share the URLs with us
It does sound like a big expense project but why not start by getting the pleo and running it for a while to see just what it is currently capable of and then you will have a good feel for just which bits are going to need to be upgraded.  You could also start working on the reprogramming or rewriting of the OS to compliment the upgrades your hoping to do, while you save up for the other bits you need. 
If you do write a new OS please share it with us here,  we'd love to see it and to try it out for ourselves 

[Naoki]

Yeah, plenty of fools who wants to f**k Pleo's system! I love u guys!

Of course, I'll film myself during all the process, opening, discovering every extra-Pleo component like CPU, picking out from the smartphone every components needed, etc etc
Anyway, I am not going to do it quickly, I'll take my time for understanding every documents I could find on the internet about every component needed, which is the most suitable for Pleo between two similar ones (considering battery autonomy, that kind of stuff...), and then, after all that prepapration finished, I'll buy everything and I'll begin. And yes, I want to see the 4 stage of evolution of the basic Pleo, to recreate them if my program. And at the beginning, I will test my procedure without Pleo, using only testing plates, boutons for captors and LED for motors, for seeing if everything's working and if my Pleo won't risk anything!

I think I am gonna begin buying and testing stuff this summer, 'cause I'm going to have my own apartment (just a room, a kitchen and a WC ahah) so Pleo won't anoye anybody (my parents are a bit... Narrow-minded) else then my friends

Created a new OS will ask me a lot of work, even with an Android dev-kit, and it will requiert every hardware upgrade I'm going to do to be run properly, so you're gonna need to improve your Pleo hardware yourself before using my OS... And then, it will never be the same

[kat]

I currently have 6 pleos and I am sure I can find one of them to volunteer to be a guinea pig for an upgrading experiment      I will be very interested to see how you get on with all this.  It is very exciting. 

[Naoki]

Well, don't get too excited, you could be disappointed. I haven't already think precisely about how I can do all taht stuff, that's just beautifull ideas for now. 

But thanks for support

Wow, 6 Pleos? 6 RB or 6 different?

[kat]

3 RB and 3 Ugobe  
It's great to have some new thinking and new ideas on the forum.  I will be interested to see how your ideas pan out    I know they are just thoughts at the moment and these things take time but all great things were just someones thoughts in the beginning.   

[Naoki]

Wow, and you're taking care of all of them every day? That must take a lot of time doesn't it?

http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=3718.msg54097#new
Here I've post all informations I found about Pleo's technology, and also a recap of my ideas and technical research about them. Be sure to check it