Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

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daudirsch
 
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Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:37 am

Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

Post by daudirsch »

Disclaimer

I realize this is probably not the correct place to post this, so any kind help to get me in the right area would be greatly appreciated.

Bit of Background
I'm in this project's initial research and design stage. This project is for me. I'm a C5 quad (paralyzed from my chest down) and I like doing these projects to keep my brain active. As the title states, I'm mounting a Bug-A-Salt fly shooter gun to my wheelchair with some 3D print arm supports to hold the gun. Now, that's the reason for the project.

Image

Our Experience Level
We have created a fully-lit Darth Vader costume with 3 helmet fans (two incomings and one outgoing). We wired everything to a 5v battery pack.

We also have used adafruit sound f/x board to add music to costumes.

So, although not complete noobs, we are beginner-to-intermediate-good-learners we're trying to step up our game about with this project.

In A Perfect World The Finished Product Would have...
- I have a throat mic (I don't have use of my hands/fingers, that I used on our Darth Vader build)
- I'd like to connect the mic to a board that would start a servo (or something) when I say "fire".
- The trigger would need to be as fast as possible, so it would shoot once it "heard" the word "fire". It would need to be like "fire!" and then the gun trigger needs to be pulled as close immediately as possible.

Hopefully, I've explained it well enough. I'm open to feedback/input

That's essentially it. I'm planning on adding a scope and a few other add-ons.

My questions are about verbiage and which tool...
- Is there a chip/card that can distinguish a word like "fire" and then make a "servo" or some "mechanism"
- Is "servo" what I'm looking for? When I see "servo" used, It tends to be rather a slow-moving mechanism. I need something strong enough to pull a gun trigger.

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bidrohini
 
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Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:03 am

Re: Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

Post by bidrohini »

There are voice recognition modules available. Such as -The elechouse speech recognition module. Those can act according to voice commands. But I did not find those modules accurate. I think, a Raspberry Pi based Speech recognition system will be more accurate:
https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/ ... -pi-4.html

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daudirsch
 
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Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:37 am

Re: Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

Post by daudirsch »

Thanks. I actually have an RPI sitting around that I can play with.
bidrohini wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 10:21 am There are voice recognition modules available. Such as -The elechouse speech recognition module. Those can act according to voice commands. But I did not find those modules accurate. I think, a Raspberry Pi based Speech recognition system will be more accurate:
https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/ ... -pi-4.html

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bidrohini
 
Posts: 202
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:03 am

Re: Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

Post by bidrohini »

You're most welcome.

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daudirsch
 
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Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:37 am

Re: Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

Post by daudirsch »

So, I have since learned that what I was looking for is a solenoid, not a servo! So I have a solenoid that is going to push my trigger.

Now I have to figure out how to best activate the solenoid "hands-free" since I don't have use of my arms and hands. This is where I was hoping I could say a keyword to activate the solenoid. Not sure to go about this. Any ideas?

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm

Re: Project Help for Wheelchair Mounted Bug-A-Salt Trigger Mechanism

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

The link above has a good description of installing and using the SpeechRecognition Python module. The first step will be installing that and playing with it for a while.

Ultimately you'll need to train the software to recognize the command you want to give. Once you've done that, you can write a Python script that will listen to audio input and try to recognize that command. When it does, you'll get a result you can use to select further actions like activating a solenoid.

Getting that code to respond quickly will take some additional work. You have to tell the recognition software when to listen for input, then give it time to collect enough data to recognize a pattern. It will take some experimentation to balance the need to listen against the need to respond quickly.

While you're doing that, search for other projects using the SpeechRecognition module to see if they have any tricks or techniques worth stealing for your own project. 99% of all software is either directly copied from somewhere else or a lightly-modified version of code that already exists. Don't be afraid to look for existing solutions and adapt them.

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