S2 Request from a customer: drawing several Chinese characters
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,392
Hey there!
Customers often ask if they can help us out, so here I am!
At the end of August Parallax is launching a major robotics distribution effort in China. The first unveiling happens at a technology show in Xi'an (at http://www.qiceg.com). At this show the distributor has [in grand Chinese style] reserved a very huge display area (10,000 sf?) for demonstrations [the robot kind, haha!]. Among the many requests I'm fielding from this group is to have an S2 write some Chinese characters.
These characters speak to a warm relationship between China and United States - something like "Chinese American friendship forever!"
I would like to call upon a forum member here to modify for pen lifting and program a couple of S2 robots to write these characters. The character height would be about one foot high and be made with a fat Sharpie. I know that I've seen most all of these resources on the forum (W9GFO, for example) and there's a video from Jessica that demonstrates X/Y coordinate system plotting.
Any takers? Schedule is to complete this task by July 1st.
What I'll provide in exchange for this work is your choice of Parallax hardware, within reason - say $300 worth or so.
If there are multiple replies to this message I'll have to pick one.
Thanks,
Ken Gracey
Customers often ask if they can help us out, so here I am!
At the end of August Parallax is launching a major robotics distribution effort in China. The first unveiling happens at a technology show in Xi'an (at http://www.qiceg.com). At this show the distributor has [in grand Chinese style] reserved a very huge display area (10,000 sf?) for demonstrations [the robot kind, haha!]. Among the many requests I'm fielding from this group is to have an S2 write some Chinese characters.
These characters speak to a warm relationship between China and United States - something like "Chinese American friendship forever!"
I would like to call upon a forum member here to modify for pen lifting and program a couple of S2 robots to write these characters. The character height would be about one foot high and be made with a fat Sharpie. I know that I've seen most all of these resources on the forum (W9GFO, for example) and there's a video from Jessica that demonstrates X/Y coordinate system plotting.
Any takers? Schedule is to complete this task by July 1st.
What I'll provide in exchange for this work is your choice of Parallax hardware, within reason - say $300 worth or so.
If there are multiple replies to this message I'll have to pick one.
Thanks,
Ken Gracey
616 x 104 - 20K
Comments
Uh oh, check that. That's not what it says at all, that's a terrible thing to write in Chinese.
This is right up NikosG's alley. He has done the English alphabet characters as well as Greek. I'm sure he could whip out these Chinese characters easily. Then apply his "earnings" to airfare to get him to come to one of Parallax's fine conferences.
"Under heaven we are all one family" ... All done in 4 characters "Tian Xia Yi Ja".
Something with the 'dragon' character would be interesting and ambitious - 17 brush strokes.
The real issue is whether you are going to print in a dot-matrix style fashion, for to be faithful to following the traditional stroke sequences of Chinese calligraphy. Following the brush strokes would impress the Chinese a heck of a lot more than than merely printing on a grid.
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/147530-Ecclesiastic-symbols-and-robotics
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/138663-Alphabet-for-S2-a-collaborative-project.?p=1086778&viewfull=1#post1086778
Glad you two guys showed up with solutions.
Yes, XBees could be part of this project too.
Rich, it sounds like I might be sending this hardware up to you for modification and character generation. We'll wait and see if Nikos joins in on the discussion. We'll let this bake for another day and see if he shows up. erco, good idea about Nikos. I'd be really happy to host him at Parallax in the future. He's contributed so much to our company.
Ken Gracey
Oh yeah, George, we're going for the traditional stroke sequences. We're out to impress them!
Some phrases and slogans might be the same in both. I think that is the case with "Tian Xia Yi Jia"... nicely universal.
There is a whole reference text of 4 character adages that could be searched for some interesting and welcoming adages. Just providing 5 would be adequate. Five is an auspicious number. Above all, you don't have to demonstrate all 7000 characters in both simplified and traditional format. That would take up quite a bit of storage on an SDcard.
Not only would the kids like the writing, the parents would approve that something that upheld traditional values was included.
Who knows, it might begin a fad of seeing who can write what with 4 characters and a Scribbler. The number of brush strokes within one character can get quite high... I suspect into the 20s, maybe into the 30s. The traditional radicals top off at 17 brush strokes.
George, by "adages" do you mean examples of Chinese writing, or some other kind of display of traditional Chinese values? If the latter, some possibilities might include:
- With an SD card addition we could play the national anthem through the S2's speaker
- A name card delivery robot
- Moon cake delivery system
http://chineseculture.about.com/od/thechineselanguage/a/Chinese-Proverbs.htm
But what I was thinking of is the whole corpus of 4 character idions. Chinese students don't have the same refereence material that English learners have.
There are two basic texts, instead of merely one dictionary.
A. a dictionary of single characters
B. a dictionary of 4 character idioms.
The idioms are a source of endless amusement.
For instance.
People mountain, people sea (Ren shan ren hai) means a place that is overrun with people, like visiting Disney Land on the 4th of July.
Or
Horse road lke tiger's mouth (Ma lu ru hou kou) {opps, 5 characters} The road is like a tiger's mouth, meaning traveling the roadways is likely to get you mauled like having been attacked by a tiger.
Another,
Love me love the crow's on my roof. Meaning that you have to accept all of me, the good and the bad.
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There are some Hong Kong cartoon illustrated books that have some of the funniest. I have one book buried in my bookshelves and it might offer up a few of the best.
The main thing is that I thought that taking this a step deeper into the realm of cross-cultural fun would added something to the kind of welcome Parallax might get in China.
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I am a bit ambivalent about national anthems in general. When I first arrive in Taiwan, I saw one of Ang Lee's earlier films, The Wedding Feast within the first month. At that time, everyone had to stand up and salute the flag while the R.O.C. national anthem was played at the start of each and every movie.
Of course, you mention the P.R.C. national anthem and that is a world apart from where I live.
A few years later, this display of nationalism in Taiwan disappeared and we just got public service announcements and the ads for Dolby surround after that.
I fear that Taiwan and Hong Kong markets might take exception to the P.R.C. anthem packaged in a product. And of course, the P.R.C. would take exception to the R.O.C. anthem packaged in a product.
It may be best to just focus on older culture that everyone likes.
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More important than a "Moon Cake Delivery System" is a "Red Envelope Delivery System". Kids in the USA may have Christmas stockings, but Chinese kids get their red envelope every Chinese New Year.
One tradition is the one Moon Cake might have a coin inside, ideally a real gold coin. But that is just for one lucky person out of all the guests. And Chinese New Years will always be more important than all the other holidays.
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Back to the 4 character adages.
I am sure the Chinese New Year's greeting "Gung Xi Fa Tsai" would be must have. It means "Everyone should prosper", a very gracious sentiment to start the new year.
We are buying a new place that is a little west of here of here so pretty soon it will be even less.
The Dragon charcter has 17, and a turtle is another high one at 16.
While brush stokes don't have to be exact, they do have an exact order of execution that depends on the how the character is constructed. There are references on line that give all the Chinese characters and their proper brush stroke sequence. But the rule of sequence are not that hard to work out.
Still, I realize this all adds a lot of up-front work to programing the writing of character. But a Chinese user would appreciate that it is teaching 'the correct way' that all have to learn in school.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I found my reference for Chinese Idioms. This is Peng's Chinese Treasury - Chinese Idioms: Vol 1 and 2.
This is a short witty presentation of idioms, not the whole corpus... there are thousands.
http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Idioms-Vol-Pengs-Treasury/dp/0893462896
[video=youtube_share;tGziOME2o-I]
All the best in China!
Kenichi, I take it you've verified that these characters send a positive message like I provided above. Wouldn't want to be one of those people who use Chinese characters that have some meaning other than what I envisioned. Though I'm not going to tattoo them on my back, writing the wrong characters in front of Chinese officials could be very embarrassing.
Looks like we can follow your brush strokes to do this with the S2.
Well, actually, its OK but to me, it sounds a little funny. Let me explain:
中美: Here, you have already placed China in-front so giving the people of China the respect.
友好万岁: Here, this sounds a little funny. Normally, if you say "friendship", you would use "友谊万岁" which literally means friends forever. Which, to me, would sounds right to a Chinese.
So, the final sentence should be "中美友谊万岁“.
1. The Chinese New Years well wishing = Gung Xi Fa cai; Prosperity for Everyone
恭喜发财 Simplified
2. Welcome greeting = Guang Ling ; A Formal welcome
歡迎 << Traditional Chinese
3. Everyone is Family = Tian Xia Yi Jia; Under heaven we are all family
天下一家 << both Traditional and Simplified are the same
Here is another link of some more interesting possibilities.
http://www.chinesetools.eu/chinese-dictionary/index.php?q=ushering%20in%20wealth%20and%20prosperity%20(idiom%20and%20traditional%20greeting,%20esp.%20at%20New%20Year)
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These are all well known and well phrased, not some stilted translation.
I am still trying to figure out another two. And I have to provide the Simplified and Traditional Chinese character versions for all.
That would total about 20 target characters, some rather challenging.
Here is another nice one that is new to me, good for the Moon Festival.
光风霁月
guāng fēng j
The down side is the line width is thin, a 1/4 in. tip sharpie would be perfect. Do they make something that wide?
Did you make that character with the GUI program, or in Spin code? That's surprisingly good yet in Spin code I think you can have much higher accuracy.
Have you seen this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azsp2D1vI6o
Actually I think bluetooth might be better since it does not require any additional hardware on the computer end.
I did that in Spin code and scalable, the tire wobble and slip is what kills your accuracy. When I was printing names at last years UPEC I got the best results with wide continuous computer paper on a flat white board so the S2 had the same traction at all times. You could use a continuous roll of paper on a nice flat table to get your 1 foot high characters. The computer paper is a little rough and gives the best traction. You also have to tape each corner or the paper will shift. Maybe we could add some acceleration to the write code so the S2 did not stop so hard that it causes the paper to shift.
The Chinese and Japanese both make disposable pens that perform like a traditional ink brush. Using one of these would be idea. And the traditional way of holding an ink brush is perpendicular to the surface, so you writing would be close to what a human hand should do.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-3-HERO-Pen-Chinese-Calligraphy-Brush-Flexible-Nib-Ideal-for-Autograph-Art-/170882026662
Still looking for somebody to do the mods and characters with these robots. As for the actual characters, we could use some of Loopy's suggestions instead just as nicely, or those from MacTuxLin. We'll figure that out.
Offer still stands: I'll send you everything you need, you mod it and send it back, and I'll give you a Parallax credit.
Any takers?
Thanks,
Ken Gracey
Thanks W9GFO and bee_man.
Rich I'll put together a package for you. In addition to a couple of S2s, what else should I include? Mini servos for pen lifters?
Drop me a message and let me know, and I'll get this out the door.
Thanks,
Ken Gracey