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Category: Projects
With an Arduino Ethernet, Processing, and a Kinect, I was able to easily create this little demo where hand movement can control a servo. This is just a tiny step in my master plan to create a robot clone so that I don’t have to leave my chair.
The following libraries and drivers made this work and also made it super easy for me to create it:
OpenKinect
Daniel Shiffman’s Processing Kinect Library (he knows his stuff and has great examples on his site)
Arduino Ethernet UDP send / receive string
Servo:
EMAX ES08A Servo
How it works:
- The Arduino Ethernet acquires an IP address and waits for UDP packets on a certain port.
- The machine with the Kinect sends packets to the Arduino that contain hand coordinate data.
- The Arduino then takes this data (an integer) and maps the range from 0 to 180 degrees.
- The mapped value is sent to the servo.
It’s not a serious competition until you’ve put a microcontroller inside your gingerbread house. Since we were going for the Charlie Brown theme, I ripped apart and adapted a musical card that played ‘Linus and Lucy’. I also rigged up some LEDs to blink with the music. Video below the pictures.
