Through
working on the
Adventure Time
video game, I've become a big fan of
the show itself. In
particular, the
character BMO - the adorable, sentient game
console - is really hard
not to love. The series's creator has even
gone on record stating that
she is his favorite character. If you need
convincing that BMO is
awesome, check out this
or this.
I had been wanting to get back into some
hobby electronics and robotics work, so I
thought it would be really
fun to try and make a real life BMO that can
talk, play games, and look
super cute sitting on my desk at work.
I may look into setting up a blog or
something specifically for the BMO
Buddy project, but for now I'll begin
retro-actively documenting the
process
here on my website.
Pre-July
7th, 2013 - "I am a little living boy!"
The BMO project is now officially live! I
wanted
to hold
back from talking about it until after it
was further along than just
loose ideas
and breadboards full of wires. While the
project is far from finished,
it is starting to come together very well
and I feel comfortable
talking about the rest of the work to be
done.
The project consists of several parts:
Custom circuit to control and power
various
components like screens, speech modules,
and motors.
Custom case and game controllers.
Interchangeable software so BMO can
have actual
game
"cartridges".
The circuitry involved seemed more than
applicable to a decently
powerful microcontroller and nothing on the
concept side initially
seemed to tricky of a technical problem to
design around. Even game
carts seemed like a possibility using SD
cards. I've written software
interpreters and simple computer languages
in the past, so being able
to load and run custom games also seemed
like a possibility. And, while
I'm a pretty lousy artist, BMO is
essentially a box with some holes in
it so I thought I might be able to pull off
making something
recognizably close to her visual appearance
as well.
At present, BMO's brain is an Arduino
Mega
microcontroller. With it, she can talk
through an Emic2 speech
synthesis
chip, animate her eyes and mouth on a
2.8-inch touchscreen, and
register touch input on her
screen/face (Currently used to tell BMO to
speak). Her case was
designed in a 3D modeling program and
printed out on my desktop 3D
printer in ABS plastic. She can read input
from custom joysticks, but
there are currently no games to play on
her yet so they havn't been
built any further than the circuit
prototype stage just yet. She can,
however, run off of battery power now, so
I can take her places...
...For example, If you were at Anime
Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center
today, you might have seen
BMO making the rounds through the
convention halls, screen lit with a
smile for every picture taken. I will add
a new entry soon with some
picks of BMO from the show floor, as well
as more info on the circuits
and other components.
July
7th,
2013 - "BMO get camera? BMO IS camera!"
I took BMO
with me to Anime Expo at the Los Angeles
Convention Center today. My original plan
was to make some sort of
shoulder harness so that BMO could sit on my
shoulder like a pirate's
parrot, but I didn't have enough time to
figure out how to make one
sturdy eoungh, so I just carried her around
instead.
The most common reactions I got from the
show floor were people asking
where they could buy one for themselves, how
much I wanted to sell mine
for, when I would be making more to sell,
and
"OHMIGAWDBEEMO!!", all of which I regard as
being pretty
positive. Sorry, he's not for sale!
Lots of people also asked to take pictures
or inquired as to
how I made her, and everyone was excited
to hear her talk even though it was really
loud in the convention hall.
Even with just the limited functionality of
being a homemade electronic
thing that looks cute and speaks, she
managed to turn lots of heads and
generate a lot of attention.
In order to make BMO presentable away from
my workbench, I had to
really put in an effort to finish the
first version of the case. There were
some issues - most of
them stemming from working
in a 3D modeling program designed to be used
for loose sculpting rather
than
high-precision CAD work - but I've made a
version that I could print
out on my desktop 3D printer and is capable
of holding most of
currently working elements. I wound up doing
several revisions,
eventually
settling on a three-piece shell that snaps
together.
I'm
still
refining a lot of things, and there still
many more features yet to
add. However, I did manage to make enough
room for batteries and an
on/off switch so I could take BMO around
with
me to Anime Expo today. I've added a few
pics below of BMO seeing the
sites, although it seems like her favorite
section was the arcade area
(Of course!). I'll try and write another
update soon with more detailed
information on the components.
