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| Small Son of Zylatron is seen to the left of its Father, Zylatron. SOZ weighs only a fraction of its father and yet has all the same functions and more. |
Designed & Built by Humanoido
This is my next addition to a family of personal home robots! The Zylatron series of robots are precursors to the early humanoid robots. Son of Zylatron is seen at lower left, with Father Zylatron in the background. After moving 3 times, I finally had time to convert my new dining room into a robotics & electronics lab.
With a "toolroom" in one corner, computers in another, and lots of parts, I began work on several new robot projects. With a robot dog for companionship, I burned the midnight candle, and little "SOZ" was born! Weighing in at a mere 2 lbs. 2 oz, he's dwarfed by the 28 pound father!!!
Son of Zylatron has 3 computers, and is partially built up from a BoeBot robotics parts kit. Several additional computer stages were added using standoffs to connect board levels, and networked using a circuit designed to act like a mini-token ring. Total robot cost, with all the "bells & whistles," is around $500. With several weekends of planning, construction, and programming, the greatest challenge was duplicating the functions of the previous robot and keeping all the parts tiny and the weight down so as not to overtax the two servos.
The primary level is a Basic Stamp 2 computer mounted on a BOE, Board of Education. The second level is a more powerful Basic Stamp 2SX computer with expansion cards on top, including a Parallax AppMod solderless breadboard and prototype board.
At top, a StampMem circuit board provides extra memory, and a Basic Stamp I OEM computer is wired to handle input/output and dedicated processes. An electronic voice can function on either the Basic Stamp 1 or 2, using a vintage voice synthesizer IC set (General Instruments SPO-256) bought on ebay. The electrical chip uses allophones, an advantage over specific phonemes, giving it capability to speak any language as programmed. This is the same voice chip used by Father Zylatron nearly 2 decades ago. It's interesting to note the Son's chip is driven by a slightly faster crystal, resulting in a higher pitched voice.
Motion control is provided by two 45 gram servos modified for continuous rotation. Infrared sensors give ranging information for navigation, and two whisker feelers are for tactile feedback. A serial LCD reports parameters, acting as a mini-display for diagnostics and communications. A MemKey interface, and micro matrix keyboard built using a Radio Shack printed circuit board and tiny keys obtained from Mouser Electronics are recent additions.
Another add on, for voice input commands, uses a dedicated Voice Direct Speech Recognition kit, purchased from All Electronics Corp., which can be trained to recognize words or phrases in any language. Robotic power is supplied to the computers and peripheral boards by Nickel Metal Hydride rechargeable 9-volt batteries obtained at Wal-Mart and Radio Shack. Servos, with 3.4kg-cm torque, are driven by four AA batteries on a separate circuit but with common grounds to avoid spiking to central processors. Programming for all 3 computers is in PBASIC language which contains a special microcontroller instruction subset. The BS2 and BS2SX computers are programmed by downloading instructions with an HP desktop computer using Windows 98 operating system and a serial cable. The BS1 is programmed using a Twinhead laptop with DOS and a parallel cable. Once the program is burned in, instructions remain in memory, even after power is removed, until the burn-in process is repeated. This new 2001 robot matches functionality of the previous 1984 robot, but at only a fraction of the original size, weight, and power requirements.
Data from the Original Web Site
| Target Environment | Locomotion Method |
| Indoors | 3 Wheels |
| Sensors / Input Devices | Actuators / Output Devices |
| IR sensors whiskers microphone matrix keyboard | modified R/C servos voice synthesizer LCD display |
| Control Method | Power Source |
| Autonomous | Battery |
| CPU Type | Operating System |
| BASIC Stamp | None |
| Programming Lanuage | Weight |
| BASIC | 2 lbs. 2 oz |
| Time to build | Cost to build |
| several weekends | around $500 |
| URL for more information | |
| N/A | |
| Comments (Text from the Web Site) | |
| This is my next addition to a family of personal home robots! Son of Zylatron is seen at lower left, with Father Zylatron in the background. Son of Zylatron has 3 computers, and is partially built up from a BoeBot robotics parts kit. Several additional computer stages were added and networked using a circuit designed to act like a mini-token ring. The greatest challenge was duplicating the functions of the previous robot and keeping all the parts tiny and the weight down so as not to overtax the two servos. The primary level is a Basic Stamp 2 computer mounted on a BOE, Board of Education. The second level is a more powerful Basic Stamp 2SX computer with expansion cards on top, including a Parallax AppMod solderless breadboard and prototype board. At top, a StampMem circuit board provides extra memory, and a Basic Stamp I OEM computer is wired to handle I/O and dedicated processes. An electronic voice can function on either the Basic Stamp 1 or 2, using a vintage voice synthesizer IC set (General Instruments SPO-256). The chip uses allophones, an advantage over specific phonemes, giving it capability to speak any language as programmed. Motion control is provided by two 45 gram servos modified for continuous rotation. IR gives ranging information for navigation, and two whiskers provide tactile feedback. A serial LCD reports parameters. A MemKey interface, and micro matrix keyboard are recent additions.For voice input commands, there is a dedicated Voice Direct Speech Recognition kit, which can be trained to recognize words or phrases in any language. The BS2 and BS2SX computers are programmed by downloading instructions with an HP desktop computer using Windows 98 and a serial cable. The BS1 is programmed using a Twinhead laptop with DOS and a parallel cable. | |
Tron Series Robots Built by Humanoido
1) Zylatron by Humanoido
https://humanoidslabs.blogspot.com/2020/03/zylatron-robot-by-humanoido.html
2) Son of Zylatron (SOZ) by Humanoido
https://humanoidslabs.blogspot.com/2020/03/son-of-zylatron-by-humanoido.html
3) Bugatron (Da Chong) by Humanoido
https://humanoidslabs.blogspot.com/2020/03/bugatron-bug-robot.html
4) Manatron
https://humanoidslabs.blogspot.com/p/manatron.html
5) Automatron by Humanoido
https://humanoidslabs.blogspot.com/2020/03/automatron-robot.html
