HAL9000, but Balancing on a Mirror Ball

[@jamesbruton]

Patrons and KZbin Channel Members already have next week's video!

[@darn9717]

That's cool james but I don't have money sorry

[@SlidewaysMotion]

@@darn9717 same tho

[@TheOutThereChannel]

I like it.. now you need it to follow you around automatically.. and have OK google on it..aka google assistant, to listen and talk to you..think can change the ok google to OK robot what is the distance to the sun.

[@soup-flavored-soup6613]

so do I

[@delphicdescant]

Tone down the groove, Hal. I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

[@vannoo67]

Don't know why you call it HAL 9000, it's clearly DDR 9000 (Drunken Dancing Robot 9000)

[@travisash8180]

Hal's favorite song kzbin.info/www/bejne/eYScgIJmiJqqaM0

[@retrogaming1986]

"I'm sorry, Dave. That's not how I roll."

[@travisash8180]

He's different kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3O4eqCghKiaa8k

[@BarioIDL]

*rofl*

[@Afeeq1011]

with the disco ball, it is less like Hal but more like a portal turret yellin "I'm different!"

[@Number-tf7ce]

1969 : "We must carefully consider the potential implications of creating an artificial intelligence" 2020 : HAL rides around on a disco ball in an attic.

[@AutisticWombot]

James: we just need it to be able to hold position. HAL: I'm sorry James, I can't do that

[@Scott_C]

Disco Stu approves this new ball.

[@brenno3735]

"I'm going to publish all the source for this, although ...I wouldn't recommend building it." lol.

[@codycarse]

This is such a brilliant idea. Who would have thought to use a disco ball?!

[@jamesbruton]

I was going to strip the mirrors off, but then I didn't ;-)

[@sawc.ma.bals.]

it looks like a metal ball from further away

[@Scott_C]

@@jamesbruton Glad you didn't. My only concern was the slipping on the mirrors. Looks like they were unfounded concerns.

[@Lucien86]

Moving it looks kind of fabulous. With the head on its very science fiction.

[@D-S-9]

That new ball works so well on video, it's really quite hypnotic. Great work. Is there room for a digital assistant in there?

[@jamesbruton]

Possibly, but I'll build V2 first.

[@SpencerPaire]

Okay Hal, play some piano music. I'm sorry James, I'm afraid I can't do that. *Plays EDM.*

[@Meleeman011]

I'd think so, a pi zero could accomplish this although I haven't seen his design or code and it may warrant a redesign

[@ristopoho824]

Okay, me here again with some minor praise. You'r sponsors are actually relevant, and yea i enjoy it a lot. I currently have far too many projects going on to start anything electronic, but when i do, i'm going to look for your sponsored links. Both because helping the channel is nice, and because they kinda guide me toward where i can get those things in the first place.

[@markstevenson4030]

If you put a strong neodymium magnet on the inside of the sphere with rollerball bearings, and attach the omni wheel plattform to that magnet with a piece of metal, the head will stay suspended and never fall off. It will also increase friction and eliminate wobble. Then you can have a high center of gravity, which makes it really unsteady - and then it will be way easier to manipulate the lean with more force, which will make it steer way better when selfbalancing. Since the Disco ball now is heavier, this will be essential. Thanks to your strong motors you’re using this time, it is achievable!

[@bbogdanmircea]

Your videos brighten my every Tuesday morning. The Disco part was amazing!

[@tomislavkefecek4443]

Never underestimate the power of any mirror ball... Looks spectacular and your idea of harnessing the mirrors for lighting at your shows would be visually amazing loving this project

[@chrisvandergriff504]

Great zoom and edit for the reveal of the finished HAL head. The in and out with the music is really classic cinematography, honestly. Old-school compelling footage, lol

[@Covenant-R]

WOW, the music part is great.... the cuttin of the video, the movie references, music... its the right part of geekery in so many ways...

[@kantpredict]

Shine some crazy RGB LEDs at it and you'll get the ending to 2001 😅

[@sanperez313]

I would buy this robot!! The aesthetics are very cool and the final scene with the red lit background is so fitting!!! You should be very proud of this build! I will try my hardest to build something as cool... you are very inspiring!

[@finallyfunctional]

Great stuff. I agree bigger omni wheels would probably help it work even better.

[@makeradd3494]

You should put some down facing lights on it to project disco lights on the ceiling and walls! Great stuff, thanks for all you do for the maker community.

[@zrebbesh]

My first re-design of this would be a spherical robot - a very bottom-heavy robot with wheels spaced evenly around the surface, mounted inside the thin spherical shell. A 3DoF arm (forward/back, left/right, clockwise/counterclockwise) on top of the sphere robot locks the "head" in place through the shell with an array of several powerful magnets. This configuration is dynamically stable, can hold its head on upside down, and because the sphere robot has a lot more angular momentum than the shell, it can accelerate and turn much more quickly.

[@nitrostormbcn]

I did a balancing robot a while ago and the performance improved drastically when I went from controlling the speed of the motors to the acceleration. Acceleration is what provides the balancing counter torque, try it out if you can!

[@outofthebots3122]

Good to see much improvement. I have no doubt the bigger wheels and only using 3 wheels will work much better. I am also sure the gearing it down will get much better behavior from the motors at such low RPM. Then it will react quicker not getting so far off balance where it requires such aggressive response to recover. I also think this is where stepper motors will shine as they perfect control over RMP at low speed. I really enjoy watching your channel as you seem to have the time to create the things that I would love to create myself but never have the time or spare cash to build.

[@dajulster]

would love if you talked more about the specific gains you used to tune the robot into a workable state and talked about the influences of P I and D in your setup. Love your work btw =)

[@WistrelChianti]

Love the editing with the zoom ins :D made me laugh (which is super appreciated these days)

[@Vaxtin]

I like the dance parties you do with your mechanical creations.

[@maxtorque2277]

For more grip between drive wheels and ball, you need more load, but without more mass, so the inertial forces don't; go up as well. Which leads me to two possible options 1) a magnetic enhancement or 2) a differential pressure enhancement. option1) obviously either needs a metal ball , or a carriage that rides inside the ball to provide the other pole pair, but has the advantage of being silent, potentially pretty powerfull in terms of load, and relatively insensitive to ride height option 2) could use a 3d printed semi circular "dish" using a bush type seal on the edge, and will be power hungry and potentially noisy (driving an exhaust fan to pull air from between the dish and the ball) but could work extremely well on a ball of any material, think of it as an inverse hovercraft it you will! The actually diff pressure can be pretty low, because you can work with a fairly large total area

[@FusionSource]

Hey James, that is so gorgeous, looks amazing. Love your work man. The mirror ball is a nice looking upgrade but will it be hardy enough? Great work and thanks for sharing.

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

Just a tip, you could coat the old ball with a very hard lacquer like PU varnish or something even harder. Sand it well in between coats and polish the last layer. This should give a similar result. The mirror ball is kind of problematic since the tiny mirrors have a tendency to fall off. However THE MIRROR BALL LOOKS WAY MORE ULTRACOOL!!!

[@TheMeditron]

The real eye for hal was a pretty rare specific type of lens that had a light shined through it and it made the red light. Adam savage tour'd peter jacksons collection of movie stuff and it was in there

[@BjarkeHellden]

I was actually joking about using a disco ball back when I did my bachelor project about building a ball balancing robot. Ended up using a basketball but looks like a disco ball wasn't such a bad idea after all

[@gadgetman4494]

I never knew that I needed HAL9000 balancing on a mirror ball until I saw this. Now I must have it!

[@timothyt.82]

Mobile control unit. Capable of traversing the station to access special terminals designed to hold the ball. These terminals allow for direct control of different sections of the station during emergency situations.

[@FSK1138]

11:04 EPIC !!! ,far cooler than a monolith !!! looking forward to the updates

[@charmlighter]

I’ve been here since the beginning of this Chanel and I feel like a proud dad watching how far it’s come and I’m only 34 lol well done James :)

[@tiporari]

Be neat to see an optical sensor or even a trackball type optical arrangement to measure the ball movement. May give more direct tracking of the ball movement allowing better feedback and thus control.

[@mddevice2108]

Random idea; A second CG adjuster. I'm thinking of a small motor mounted with the shaft pointing up and an unbalanced mass that rotates around the shaft. It can make quick adjustments which will allow it to shift its CG very slightly. This will allow it to seem very stable at slight deviations from vertical.

[@AlexanderVaughn]

Take a shot everytime he says PCB in the ad. Trust me it's worth it. 🤣

[@OzAndyify]

The eye looked kind of sinister, but the drunken mirror ball dance took the edge off. Munted party HAL is cool.

[@nagualdesign]

(10:50) Only James would choose to 3D print a flat piece of black plastic, rather than cutting out a bit of sheet material. 😊 Even a piece of cardboard coloured black with a marker would suffice.

[@IneptOrange]

I suppose a collaboration between James Bruton and Michael Reeves would be disastrously hilarious. Imagine taking any of James' robots and outfitting them with a high powered laser.

[@joannot6706]

Title of the video: "HAL9000 But It's Funky As Hell"

[@gleaming999]

I hear it asking? "Are you still there?", "I'm different"

[@nobodyuknow2490]

This was a triumph... I'm making a note here... huge success... It's hard to overstate my satisfaction ^_^

[@lpvillazon]

I think this would be more stable if the ball had more mass. The pendulum fallacy doesn’t apply here because the ball isn’t being driven from below. A heavier ball would have more inertia, so for a given force exerted by the wheels, the ball would move less and HAL would move more. The would allow HAL to climb back up to the top of the ball, without sending the ball shooting off. So the combined robot could remain upright without so much swaying from side to side as it balances.

[@BjarkeHellden]

I believe position control will definitely help with balancing for longer periods of time. Imagine if the robit has a tendency to drift in a certain direction. This drift would build up over time, making the robot move faster and faster. As you said, the robot regains balance by accelerating, not by moving at a certain velocity, it could be moving at top speed but still be out of balance and unable to accelerate any further to regain balance. But yeah, the performance could also seem to be limited by the mechanical design, especially regarding making it more robust to disturbances and making it able to lean to larger angles. But I believe its possible to improve the stability while sticking to a design similar to this.

[@DariusAlexanderMusic]

Hey James - just a suggestion about "the shakes"; could you run the output of the gyro through an IIR low-pass filter? I guess there's a calculable limit to the highest frequency the bot should be moving at, else could be eye-balled.

[@beconfly]

Agreed

[@JonBck]

I love this project! It's soooooo incredibly "unnecessary" and "stupid". And I mean that in the most positive way!!! I'm also making unnecessary things, but when I see this, I'm completely hooked, just can't stop watching! Keep up the good work!

[@aasutossh]

That mirror ball reflection is cool.

[@beautifulsmall]

For pid tuning, use three pots on the arduino, if you can have it tethered. also do you use angular rate in the balance equation. not only do you need zero absolute angle but also zero angular velocity. You probably know all this. great to see.

[@zippythinginvention]

Three notions : What does it do if you immobilize the ball, like sitting it in a ring or divot? What if you put your sensors closer to the ball? Can you make a walking robot balance on a ball?

[@avejst]

Great outcome with your current experience! Great work 👍😀 Thanks for sharing 👍😀

[@reggiep75]

The scaring of small children from this project would be great. A speaker and some industrial grating, grinding, deep noises and a robotic voice in conjunction with movement, with a movement controlled synthesizer, would be good. ;-). HAL 9000 - I'm not well, Dave... Must chase and scare children! Great project and keep up the great work. I think another project regarding balancing robots would be to build something that balances on TWO BALLS - ideally 2 basketballs - and make the control unit drive the balls in all manner possible, side by side, in a chain and even have it go up/down slight inclines.

[@rafael.beirigo]

This is great! I've been dreaming of doing one that is just the ball, with all the stuff inside. It would be like a "virtual pet", following you around

[@TheAstronomyDude]

For V2, paint it like a peach; instead of HAL make a tiny you; name it James and the Giant Peach Bot :D

[@martinedelius]

The eye worked out great! At the end I couldn't help but imagine HAL9000 on the dance floor, in his finest getup at some droid party, drunkenly hitting on other droids. :)

[@chrisblake4198]

The next version would be awesome if it had undercarriage lighting that does dynamic color changing, shining off the mirror ball. If it responded to music, you would have a portable party bot (9000).

[@richardbloemenkamp8532]

James, did you consider put two IMU's, one at the top of the 'turret' and one at the bottom of the turret? I think with the processing of both IMU accelerations you may be able to separate the gravity vector from the acceleration vector. Both IMU's measure the gravity in the same way but the top IMU is much more affected by acceleration if the turrets starts tilting. Maybe there is Gyro data in the IMU that is already containing this information.

[@oswynfaux]

We saw what an 8-bit James would look like.

[@grahamrust3322]

if you had a larger hollow you could add a large lead weight strung on 2 wires with motors to dynamically adjust the center of gravity

[@lantienpeng]

It’s time to dance, Dave

[@HAL-zn6hd]

i want dance with SAL 9000 xd

[@Blue.4t2]

The rabbit hole is starting to get really deep. Recommend you start using a guide line so you can find your way back! 🔧😊👍

[@FriesenDesigns]

A few years back we devised a method of rotating the omni wheels to encapsulate the ball better and also promote orthogonality of the omniwheels to decouple actuation of the omni-wheels. We had the same problems with the robot trying to leap off the ball. Brief paper here if you are curious: fccr.ucsd.edu/pubs/ysfb15.pdf

[@matterwiz1689]

Now I want to see the version of 2001 in which instead of going rogue, HAL discovers his passion for disco and teaches humanity how to dance again.

[@CDRaff]

I love the idea of you having a literal army of Party-bots.

[@fooman2108]

I am sorry but I cannot resist, adds new meaning to old song Panic at the Disco!

[@naveenv996]

Amazing built... Can't wait for v2.... 😍

[@mattiasfagerlund]

HAL9000, "Murder at the disco" version!

[@adityathakur7604]

I was really inspired to build this and was even going to. I had always used steppers and servos for my builds and was blown away by the price of an odrive in my place which ranges b/w $300-400. Maybe next time then.😅

[@benjaminringrose536]

I had no idea John Oliver was so smart. Joking of course, love the videos!

[@onebeartoe]

This is absolutely smashing!

[@clydesight]

This is such a cool looking robot! I LOVE the mirror ball, the head design, it looks so awesome! Now, can it open the pod bay doors? Hmmm...

[@Avetho]

So instead of how GLaDOS went into a Potato after Wheatly took over, Hal needs a mirror ball after the ship was shut down XD This is really cool

[@kazolar]

Had the volume a bit loud, my wife walks into my office and says -- it's loud, it's not a disco -- I said, well we got a disco ball -- so it is. Got a good chuckle out of her -- plus she said it was cute.

[@bharadhwajr5606]

Wow that's so cool. James, can you elaborate on your PID tuning process please? I'm also building the same robot with 3 wheels, but i cant get it to balance at all. Thanks.

[@reid-dye]

You could try making it a thin iron/steel ball and then put magnets on the robot so that it stuck onto the robot and could then achieve higher angles.

[@FHBStudio]

I think it's interesting and cool that there's no AI needed for the balancing part. Or any part thus far really.

[@NicksStuff]

Now I want to see these things race

[@PassionIsVita1]

This but with the LIDAR self navigation would be so cool!

[@jamesbruton]

I was planning to try it, but we'll need a V2 first.

[@PassionIsVita1]

@@jamesbruton Yeah I would imagine the LIDAR would need to be fairly stable otherwise it would throw out anomalous data? I look forward to seeing V2

[@jurjenbos228]

Love the space age video montage

[@WNDDuP]

Now we need a new "A Space Odyssey" movie where HAL rolls through the corridors on his Disco Ball dishing out some groovy justice to the human race.

[@old_gregam8274]

This turned out awesome

[@domi1347]

I wonder how it would balance with some "whiskers" between each wheel section, and then those "whiskers" would have a small mass on the tip. Like top section of fishing rod with ~>100g weights. Then those could be raised/lowered for additional stabilisation. Another thing: will we see you on LBRY?

[@visibleconfusion9894]

haha I KNEW this was gonna happen the second I saw your instagram post

[@tefradc]

Nice work. You are pretty underrated.

[@akselwilliamdanenbarger7969]

Now the How 9000 is an disco-ballrobot.😆 try with some lights shining on it and take it will make partylights. 🔦🤣

[@atorrance]

It would be super interesting if you attempted to make a smaller scale version with a different ball to mass aspect ratio. Something like M-O from the Wall-E movie. A 5” ball with a 8” x 8” x 18” robot ontop

[@MorseB]

That ball is totally absurd! I love it!

[@johns1307]

I wonder if you could add a small quiet compressor and air tank, then use very small nozzles near the top of the "head" to make micro balance adjustments.

[@benjaminrogers9848]

Does the placement of the center of mass affect tuning with high CoG acting like a long broom vs a low CoG a short one? If minimal ball/robot movement while balancing is the aim then wouldn't a short broom/CoG which requires more sensitive but minute movements be ideal?

[@SnorwayFlake]

The oscillation seems way to concise to be a mechanical issue. Cascade control will do a better job for naturally unstable systems, try using a PD for velocity control and a PI for angle control. alternatively P (PI if you know the effective inertia of the system) for acceleration, P for velocity and PI for angle.

[@GabeWeymouth]

I was really hoping the new sponsor was going to be a disco!

[@adamwishneusky]

Reminds me more of a turret from Portal than HAL but I love it!

[@datadel2026]

Could you try building a Single-Wheeled Balancing Robot?

[@dlrowle]

the ball is just too small, GO BIGGER!! ( problem solved ) Love this channel.

[@fnhunter1848]

What if you used the planet as a ball? Mindblown 😁

[@HerrPOZA]

Excelso. Cada vez más refinados los proyectos: admirable.

[@andzerb]

Have you thought about rotating each wheel 90°? No idea how that would affect things...

[@jamesbruton]

I considering it, but it would be impossible for its head to rotate

[@oliverer3]

Gotta admit that much like the Spanish inquisition I was not expecting a disco ball.

[@Nadesican]

This seems like a robot that would do better with computed routes, rather than manual control. I would think that it'd be able to move with more stability and plan accordingly for future moves.

[@georgen2478]

Great innovation