This is really great! For the next version, I'd like to email it my grocery list and let it do all the work. Then a humanoid driving a car can deliver the groceries to my home.
Hey, sorry for the delay in responding, things have been crazy. I wanted to give a huge thanks to Parallax for supporting the project - everyone has been awesome. One thing that you don't see in the video is that our Eddie Controller went out during filming and Parallax was incredible getting us a replacement!
There's still lots to do as you can tell, but we were able to put everything that you see together in about 2.5 weeks and do some in store testing.
And UPC reading was our first choice for product ID, but the Kinect optics are optimized for distant objects and by the time you get them close enough to read the bar codes, there's significant blur because it's out of the focal depth. I haven't given up on making it work, but we were working on the Board of Imagination at the same time and haven't been able to get it back to the top of the work queue. :-)
Yeah - we talked with the Kinect team and we haven't rule it out. There are a couple of other features we want to put in to take advantage of the Kinect - one of the more interesting ones (which will probably take a good bit of work) is using the depth mode to keep track of how many items are in the basket. The kinect tilt will only do -27 degrees so we'll likely have to have a separate servo to look all the way down into the basket but using a height map on the area would allow us to be able to ensure that it has a full inventory of the cart items.
I was just thinking about a stand alone bar code reader with a serial output.
With a PC on board there's all sort of options one could use for barcode readers. With a Propeller, you need to be a little more selective.
I use a barcode reader everyday with a Propeller. Here's a link to a link with instructions how to adapt a $32 scanner from eBay for use with a Propeller.
We actually use one of those for the Board of Awesomeness, but we were showing the Cart with the Kinect team and they weren't thrilled with modding or using an add-on.
I believe I read that the new Kinect (the "Windows" version) will be able to focus closer than the XBox version. Of course, as mentioned already with a PC involved it's pretty easy to add a bar code scanner or another camera if necessary.
For real automated grocery shopping, you need to keep the people and carts completely out of the picture. The grocery store could just be a giant pick and place machine. No scanning for stuff, the "picker" just goes to the right shelf and grabs what it is looking for. Oh, and I think it would be cool if things like eggs were sent individually in pneumatic tubes.
Yes, there's a "Near Mode" for the depth frames with Kinect for Windows - it basically lets you get to about a foot and a half for distance sensing. That doesn't really help the barcode reading but the higher resolutions available with K4W does help but doesn't solve the problem for small UPC codes. As far as the picker and the rest - keep an eye out on our projects page. :-)
I believe I read that the new Kinect (the "Windows" version) will be able to focus closer than the XBox version. Of course, as mentioned already with a PC involved it's pretty easy to add a bar code scanner or another camera if necessary.
For real automated grocery shopping, you need to keep the people and carts completely out of the picture. The grocery store could just be a giant pick and place machine. No scanning for stuff, the "picker" just goes to the right shelf and grabs what it is looking for. Oh, and I think it would be cool if things like eggs were sent individually in pneumatic tubes.
Kiva systems. At the moment it still needs humans to pick and pack products. That's a FAR harder problem than making a random access warehouse where everything you want comes to you.
Back on topic, I think this shopping cart is cool. Just the database with nutrition and diet info with a bar-code scanner would be really useful on it's own.
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,387
Comments
A whole new kind of cart etiquette will be needed.
Now I'm hungry...
-Tommy
-Matt
Should replace the RFID scanners with some barcode scanners mounted on the cart. Since everything has a barcode already.
Now that the cart is smart enough and it knows what you put in it there is no need to go through checkout. It would automatically charge you
as you walk through the check out lanes.
Now I can upload my shopping cart contents to my "Smart Refrigerator" so it can keep track of what I have or need.
I need to find a place like this to work at. Is there a place like Chaotic Moon in Chicago?
There's still lots to do as you can tell, but we were able to put everything that you see together in about 2.5 weeks and do some in store testing.
And UPC reading was our first choice for product ID, but the Kinect optics are optimized for distant objects and by the time you get them close enough to read the bar codes, there's significant blur because it's out of the focal depth. I haven't given up on making it work, but we were working on the Board of Imagination at the same time and haven't been able to get it back to the top of the work queue. :-)
I learned something new today.
I was just thinking about a stand alone bar code reader with a serial output.
With a PC on board there's all sort of options one could use for barcode readers. With a Propeller, you need to be a little more selective.
I use a barcode reader everyday with a Propeller. Here's a link to a link with instructions how to adapt a $32 scanner from eBay for use with a Propeller.
http://nyko.com/products/product-detail/?name=Zoom
For real automated grocery shopping, you need to keep the people and carts completely out of the picture. The grocery store could just be a giant pick and place machine. No scanning for stuff, the "picker" just goes to the right shelf and grabs what it is looking for. Oh, and I think it would be cool if things like eggs were sent individually in pneumatic tubes.
Back on topic, I think this shopping cart is cool. Just the database with nutrition and diet info with a bar-code scanner would be really useful on it's own.
Lawson