This project concerns the ways to convert virtual information into the real world objects and try to simplify access to digital fabrication tools.
Tweet A Ball (TaB) is a robot designed to "draw" the text of tweets containing specific hashtags on balls, eggs and other spherical surfaces.
TaB is a simple exmple of how is possibles to conver bits in athoms
Unlike other *Egg-bot machines and similar, TaB is fully autonomous and doesn't require an external control station (PC) nor software for processing text to draw.
TaB was designed by Fablab Napoli within IntelMaker competition in occasion of Maker Faire 2016 exhibition.
The project, mainly intended for teaching purposes, aims to explore Intel Edison platform capability.
Exploiting the power of Intel Edison, TaB connects directly to internet and scans the Twitter stream researching specific topics of discussion (hashtags).
Identified a message matching the search criteria, the software inside the robot converts the text in lines, curves and points.
Finally the whole is converted into a sequence of movement commands that trigger the writing arm.
The entire software stack is designed specifically for the Intel Edison platform and consists of the following modules:
- Dispatcher
- Host
- Post-processor
- Firmware
The modules * Dispatcher *, * Host * and * Post-processors * have been designed in Python and are executed by Intel Edison CPU, while the firmware module has been adapted for Intel Edison MCU.
It is the module that deals with the selection and filtering of tweets and with spool management (print queue).
It receives the text from the dispatcher, sends it to the post-processor for converting into machine instructions (G-Code) and it also oversee to the execution by sending to the Firmware one instruction at a time.
It translates the text supplied to the Host in a sequence of lines, curves and points. Then converts them in motion instructions (G-Code commands).
It is the core of the entire system, it converts the G-code instructions into electrical impulses to the motors, and then in motion of the print cursor and of the ball itself.
The internal software stack has been designed to allow more TaB robots working together in the tweet representation.
That is, a "network of TaB robots".
In this configuration one of TaB's assumes the role of master, taking in charge of selecting the tweets to draw. The others act as slave.
A multi-TaB configuration has only one active Dispatcher module at a time that communicates via WiFi with different Host modules.
This configuration allows you to draw multiple tweets at a time.