Bluetooth Talking Unicorn (Using an ESP32)

34 Comments

1. 

   I used a servo motor and a microphone module, the cheapest one..

2. 

   Nicely done! Interesting/nice that you could mod things without actually doing anything with the motor itself mechanically. Nice Audio firmware – will have to keep that in mind! -J

3. 

   Love the story at the end! Is it a spring loaded solenoid on the mouth rather than a motor, that might be simpler but might not have to torque? Also if you can get the max volume of a track (or ambient max at the time) and set the threshold to say 80% of this value to move the mouth, it should help. You could also do a pitch shifter on it which shouldnt be too hard. On a use case note, we had a DIY Christmas hat competition in the family one year (the year after the raspberry pi 1 was released as I used that in it) and I made it react to music with LEDs and a 3" LCD display for eyes based on a gif image, power consumption terrible and required a battery pack with 4 18650s in it so it weighed a tonne. You could wear it as a hat that plays music or tells terrible Christmas jokes at random and wear it in the office at Christmas (maybe 2023 when we might get back to the office), or (my kids would love this part) turn it into Ponyhead from "Star Vs the forces of evil". In fact now that idea has popped into my head, where did you buy the unicorn (it's probably not on sale anymore being long past Christmas)?

4. 

   Also, a wild idea – pair it up with an Amazon Echo for giggles 🙂

5. 

   Cute and fun project. Going to show this to my daughters tomorrow, they'll love it 🙂

6. 

   Great project

7. 

   Amazing 👍👍

8. 

   Spring-loaded mechanism returns the position back to start as soon as you disconnect power to the motor…

9. 

   Awesome!!! So funny!

10. 

    Very nice project. You may be able to improve the mouth movement if you check the spectrum for vowel sounds. If you search for "identify vowels from spectrum" you can find some examples. This requires checking a larger part of the spectrum, but may still be possible. In order to avoid the volume problem you could try to scale it to the maximum peak. It may also be fun to change the pitch of the voice by shifting the spectrum and doing a reverse FFT, but I don`t know if the ESP32 is fast enough for that.

11. 

    This is great Brian. I've been wanting to so something like this with a furby for ages so this gives me some ideas. Also – loved the kiddy babbling at the end! Takes me right back.

12. 

    It's a scary day when you wake up with a unicorn's head on the pillow next to you. lol

13. 

    ….. Well done Mate, the threshold value would have to adjust to the input level ?

14. 

    Hide it at the foot of the bed. When uncovered it starts making an offer you cannot refuse!

    Separating voice from music is a very difficult subject. You'll need to do more DSP processing on more than just one frequency band.

15. 

    a crap type of vocal removal subtracts the right channel from the left, then anything in the "center" is quiet. could you use the difference in spectral content to act on what's the center (the vocals)?

16. 

    probably uses a torsion spring, motor winds it up

17. 

    This is awesome. I have been swearing at myself on and off trying to get a puppet mouth syncing to live audio. I was trying jawduino but it is designed for a servo. I wanted to get less noise and went to a stepper but everything I tried only ever half worked. This should give me a good starting point. Thank you!

    Does anyone know the name / model of the Devboard / EPS32 shield being used?

18. 

    Ha! Great stuff at the end.

19. 

    A great way to start 2022!

20. 

    That's fantastic, I love it… well the voice coming from a disembodied head did creep me out a little. Thanks Brian, Happy New Year.

21. 

    Love it!

22. 

    Pretty fun project Brian. You should try to pair it with mycroft, that would be fun.

23. 

    Glowing Eyes!

24. 

    Now that is proper hacking, like it. Does the Unicorn replace you appearaning "on screen" completely in a future video?

25. 

    Nice and funny project.

26. 

    Awesome fun project. Certainly made me think… "Now for something completely different to start the new year." 😉 It's always interesting how having kids around provides the motivation to work on this kind of fun stuff. I'm sure this will provide some lasting entertainment, and no doubt a basis for some fun related projects. Happy New Year, and all the best for 2022.

27. 

    I like the fact you document those whose inspired you various solutions. Good for finding new inspirations for your viewers! Thanks!

    By the way, wouldn't it be funny to have a video of the singing unicorn singing THE unicorn song by the IRISH rovers! 😉 I'll leave it to you.

28. 

    I dissected a Billy Bass enroute to getting one to talk with the Donald Bell script and as someone else noted it has a spring on the motor.

29. 

    That's awesome! Reminds me of a joke… 2 unicorns walk into a bar….

30. 

    cute end 🙂

31. 

    Thanks for the compliment on my analyzer. Great work is based on good examples and I do remember using your video’s in the past to learn new stuff.

32. 

    blue toot? call me in

33. 

    Usually these toys have a spring to return the mechanism to its "closed" state. It's crude but effective, and you should definitely not power the motor too long

34. 

    A talking unicorn, eh? Definitely an object that you can sell to Brexiters – although perhaps make it a bit more sparkly. And you can sell anything to Brexiters anyway.