Skip to main content

[Project] Mycroft AI (Part 2 - Design + Parts)

So while waiting for the board to arrive, I'll make a list of items that need to be fitted into the 10 by 5cm form factor.

  • The SBC (duh)
  • An expansion board
  • A mic array
  • Speakers
  • Low profile heatsink
  • LED strips (lower priority)
  • Battery pack (highly unlikely)
The price to pay for higher performance is higher CPU temperatures. So I will need to find a way to effectively cool the OPi. This could include the use of a low powered fan.

Since we are using the OPi Zero 2 Plus, we are not able to take advantage of the 40 pin GPIO like on the RPi. And I couldn't find anything for the 26 pin GPIO that the OPi comes with. So cheating time~

With the expansion board, we now have a total of 3 USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5mm TRRS video and audio out, an IR Receiver, and an onboard microphone.

An onboard microphone is less than ideal, as the assistant needs to be able to be used without it taped to side of your mouth.

So I set off searching for a USB mic array. A mic array basically more than one mic working together to produce one unified audio input. There is one by ReSpeaker, which will set me back by US$200~. Not ideal.

Searching further on the Mycroft forums returns a few alternatives. The most viable (i.e. cheapest, at SG$13) option is the PlayStation Eye made for the PlayStation 2. The Eye includes a 4-mic mic array and a camera. All these run off a single USB2.0 port, and should run on Linux. However, it needs to be stripped down to it's bare components to fit it into the small form factor.

For speakers, it's a tough one. On one hand, I can use USB speakers; on the other, I can leverage on the audio out of the 3.5mm jack; and on another, I can put together a speaker using laptop speakers.

The speakers, while not needing to be top-quality, should at least deliver some decent sound as I will attempt to play music through it. Times like these are when I wish I do some sort of electrical engineering to understand how these things work.

So I have settled with the speakers that let you clip them to the top of your laptop. Of course, to fit them into the small form factor, it has to be gutted out.

The positioning of the speakers will have to wait till they come and when I am able to test out how they sound.

Next, we have to decide whether to include a battery pack together with the setup. If we do include a battery pack with the setup, then we will be able to use the device unplugged, but besides the fact that if we disconnect the power to move the device, we do not need to wait for the device to boot up before being able to continue using it. But this will be of the lowest priority as I fail to see this as a necessity for the current setup.

Finally, we come to think of how the final product will look like. The image I am seeing in my mind is a cylinder, much alike the Amazon Echo Dot. Including LED lights that will respond according to the device. But this I have no experience in so it's a shot in the dark but I'll try to make it happen as it will make the final product look good.

The outer casing will have to be 3D printed. Since I do not have a 3D printer, I will have to rely on 3D printing services to make this happen. I'm also not a fan of hot glueing things. So I'm thinking of having slots in the case that the boards, components, etc can be slid into the casing securely.

And that's all for this post. The next post for this project will only happen after the board arrives (about 1-2 weeks from now), and will contain some tests that I will be performing such as benchmarks and Mycroft AI itself.

Subscribe to be notified whenever I post. Thanks for reading. You're awesome.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

[Guide] Installing Microsoft Office 2016 on Ubuntu Using WINE

WINE is a compatibility layer that lets Linux users install and run Windows applications. It is not a virtual machine or an emulator. In simple words the compatibility layer translates Windows calls to Linux calls and thus something that can be understood by the underlying Linux system. For GUI folks (like me), PlayOnLinux is a graphical frontend to manage WINE applications. It also helps to automate some processes during the execution of the EXE files through the use of POL Scripts. All along POL  has a script that installs Microsoft Office 2010 to a point where it runs quite smoothly and mostly bug-free. However, future versions of Office have failed to be installed or run properly. As I was playing around with a copy of Microsoft Office 2016, I was able to get Microsoft Office 2016 running "well enough TM " such that it can be used on a day-to-day basis. Here I will outline the steps I have done to accomplish My laptop is running Kubuntu 18.04.3 LTS and has POL 4.2...
Post a Comment
Read more

[Project] Pi-based Laptop (Part 2 - The SBC)

In Part 1 of the Pi-based Laptop, I have mentioned that I needed to look for an SBC that is more powerful than the Raspberry Pi 3B+ to power the laptop. Do refer back to that particular post to check out what I am looking for. Since there are so many SBCs in the market now, I have decided to be very strict in my elimination process. As long as the SBC does not hit one of the core criterias that will affect performance, it will be dropped. I will, however, make some leeway for criterias that should not affect the performance too much such as the WiFi not supporting 802.11ac. After searching around (admittedly it got boring very quickly), I have narrowed down my search a little by including major boards that run on the RockChip RK3399 (hexa-core, 4-cores @ 1.5GHz, 2- cores @ 2.0GHz). I have also included boards that seem powerful enough on paper. The budget I'm looking at? SG$180 for the SBC and its components (~US$140). So here are the final contenders: Rock64 RockPro64...
Post a Comment
Read more

[Post] Logitech M590 Multi-device Silent Mouse

Image from logitech.com As mentioned in the Logitech K375s post , I use the Logitech M590 in conjunction with the keyboard to work across multiple devices. The M590 also comes with a Unifying receiver, meaning that by buying this and the K375s, I will have 2 Unifying receivers to use for these 2 devices. You can connect both devices to a single Unifying dongle by either using the Logitech Unifying Software, or using the Logitech Flow Software (these two are Flow compatible). This mouse is also a silent mouse, perfect to go together with the previously mentioned Logitech K375s. The mouse is able to pair with 2 devices either through the Unifying receiver (which I have 2 of thanks to the K375s), or Bluetooth. I find the Bluetooth connectivity a bit shotty at best, and it takes some time to switch between devices (at least for me). So personally I prefer to have the mouse and keyboard both connected to both my Unifying receivers. As also mentioned in the K375s post, these devices su...
Post a Comment
Read more