Face Tracking and Smile Detecting Halloween Robots

Ghosty and Skully can follow your face and they know when you are smiling to laugh with you!

IntermediateFull instructions provided7,910

Face Tracking and Smile Detecting Halloween Robots

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino UNO

HM-10 Bluetooth module

Pan/Tilt kit with servos

Breadboard (generic)

LED (generic)

Software apps and online services

iRobbie-A

Story

About

Halloween is coming! We decided to build something cool. Meet Ghosty and Skully robots. They can follow your face and they know when you are smiling to laugh with you!

This project is another example of using the iRobbie App that converts iPhone into a powerful toolbox for Arduino projects.

The app is capable of capturing and processing video and then sending X and Y coordinates as well as the smile status to the Arduino through the HM-10 bluetooth module.

How to build

For this project we used cheap Halloween decorations that can be found in a dollar store and turned them into fully functioning robots.

For step one of making the skull a robot, we cut its head off from the stand with a small hacksaw.

We also used a pan/tilt kit with two servos, the Arduino Uno and the HM-10 bluetooth module.

For housing, we used a cardboard gift box with a wooden lid.

We attached a battery pack with a on/off switch inside the box using double sided tape and cut a hole on the side of the box so the switch can be accessed from the outside.

The finished product inside the box.

We drilled a small hole in the lid for the wires that connect the LEDs and the servo motors to go through, and attached the pan/tilt mechanism on the lid.

To attach Ghosty or Skully to the pan/tilt mechanism, we used disposable forks.

Skully's fork

Ghosty's fork

We made the red eyes using LEDs.

For Skully, we used another servo so he could move his mouth while he laughs, which looks awesome but requires a little bit more work that Ghosty.

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Code

Arduino Code

#include <Servo.h>

Servo servox;
Servo servoy;
Servo servoz;
int angle = 0;
boolean forward1 = false ;
String bluetoothRead, Str_x, Str_y, Str_p, Str_s;
int x ;
int y ;
int x1 ;
int y1 ;
int points;
int length;
const int buzzer = 10; 
int s;
int led1 = 3;           // the pin that the LED1 is attached to
int led2 = 2;           // the pin that the LED2 is attached to
int brightness = 0;    // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 1;    // how many points to fade the LED by
const long interval = 1000;  // interval at which to blink (milliseconds
const long interval_short = 100;
int ledState = LOW;             // ledState used to set the LED
unsigned long previousMillis = 0;        // will store last time LED was updated



#define ENA 11
#define ENB 6
#define IN1 5
#define IN2 7
#define IN3 8
#define IN4 9
#define DELAY 20


void setup() { 
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.flush();
  pinMode(IN1,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(IN2,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(IN3,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(IN4,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(ENA,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(ENB,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(buzzer, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(led2, OUTPUT);

 servox.attach(13);
 servoy.attach(12);
 servoz.attach(8);
 servox.write(90);
 servoy.write(90);
 servoz.write(90);

}

void loop() {
 int i=0;
  char commandbuffer[200];

 
  if(Serial.available()){
    
     delay(15);

     while( Serial.available() && i< 199) {
        commandbuffer[i++] = Serial.read();
  
      
     }
     commandbuffer[i++]='\0';
     bluetoothRead = (char*)commandbuffer;
     length = bluetoothRead.length();
   Serial.println(bluetoothRead);
  
     
     if(bluetoothRead.substring(0, 1).equals("x")){
       
       int i=1;
       while(bluetoothRead.substring(i, i+1) != ("y")){
       i++;
       }
       
       Str_x = bluetoothRead.substring(1, i);
       x = Str_x.toInt();
       
 
     
       Str_y = bluetoothRead.substring(i+1, length - 2);
       y = Str_y.toInt();

       
        Str_p = bluetoothRead.substring(length - 2, length - 1);
        points = Str_p.toInt();


               Str_s = bluetoothRead.substring(length - 1, length);
        s = Str_s.toInt(); 

       i = 1;
 
  Serial.println(x);
  Serial.println(y);
  Serial.println(points);
  Serial.println(s);
  Serial.println(length );        
      


}
}
    servomove(); 
     if (x1 != 0 && y1 != 0) {
    ledblink();
       if (s == 1) {
    ledlaugh();
    servomouth();
    Serial.println("Smile!");
     }
     }
     else{
      ledState = LOW;
      Serial.println("NotSmile");
      digitalWrite(led1, ledState);
      digitalWrite(led2, ledState);
     }
    
}


void servomove(){

    x1 = x/3;
    y1 = y/4;
 if (points == 4) {
                                
    servox.write(90-x1); 
       servoy.write(90-y1); 
              
    delay(10);                   
  } 
 if (points == 3)  
  {                                
    servox.write(90+x1); 
     servoy.write(90-y1); 
     delay(10); 
  }

if (points == 7)  
  {                                
    servox.write(90+x1); 
     servoy.write(y1+90); 
     delay(10); 
  }

  if (points == 8)  
  {                                
    servox.write(90-x1); 
     servoy.write(y1+90); 
     delay(10); 
  }
  
  if (x1 == 0 && y1 == 0)  
  {                                
    servox.write(90); 
        servoy.write(90); 
     delay(10); 
  }
  
}
void ledblink(){
  unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
  if (currentMillis - previousMillis >= interval) {
    // save the last time you blinked the LED
    previousMillis = currentMillis;

    // if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:
    if (ledState == LOW) {
      ledState = HIGH;
    } else {
      ledState = LOW;
    }
     // set the LED with the ledState of the variable:
    digitalWrite(led1, ledState);
    digitalWrite(led2, ledState);
  }
}

void ledlaugh(){
  unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
  if (currentMillis - previousMillis >= interval_short) {
    // save the last time you blinked the LED
    previousMillis = currentMillis;

    // if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:
    if (ledState == LOW) {
      ledState = HIGH;
    } else {
      ledState = LOW;
    }
     // set the LED with the ledState of the variable:
    digitalWrite(led1, ledState);
    digitalWrite(led2, ledState);
  }
}

void servomouth(){
    unsigned long currentMillis = millis();

    if (millis() - previousMillis >= DELAY)
      {previousMillis += DELAY;
      if (forward1)
      {
       servoz.write(-- angle);
        if(angle == 100)
        forward1 = false;
      }
      else
      {
       servoz.write(++ angle);
        if (angle == 140)
        forward1 = true;
      }
      }
}