When you step out in public, you’ll often be filmed by a number of cameras and perhaps even be analyzed by tracking software of some kind. The Watchman robot head by Graham Jessup, however, makes this incredibly obvious as it detects and recognizes facial movements, then causes a pair of eyeballs to follow you around.

The 3D-printed system — which is a modified version of Tjhazi’s Doorman — uses a Raspberry Pi Camera to capture a live video feed, along with a Raspberry Pi Zero and a Google AIY HAT for analysis.

This setup passes info on to an Arduino Uno that actuates the eyeballs via a 16-channel servo shield and a number of servos. The device can follow Jessup up, down, left, and right, making for a very creepy robot indeed!

Computer vision has traditionally relied on an assortment of rather involved components. On the other hand, everything you need to do this complicated task is readily available on an Android phone. The clever setup seen in the video here uses a smartphone to capture and process images, then send out a signal over Bluetooth to tell which way the device needs to be adjusted in order to focus on a nearby face.

An HC-05 Bluetooth module receives this signal and passes it to two servo motors via an Arduino Nano, moving the phone left/right and up/down.

You can find the Arduino code for this project on CircuitDigest, and the Android Processing code can be downloaded there as a compressed folder.

If you’re looking to build the next creepy Halloween decoration or simply thinking about trying out OpenCV for the first time, this next project will have you covered. [Glen] made a pair of giant googly eyes that follow you around the room using some servos and some very powerful software.

The project was documented in three parts. In Part 1, [Glen] models and builds the eyes themselves, including installing the servo motors that will eventually move them around. The second part involves an Arduino and power supply that will control the servos, and the third part goes over using OpenCV to track faces.

This part of the project is arguably the most interesting if you’re new to OpenCV; [Glen] uses this software package to recognize different faces. From there, the computer picks out the most prominent face and sends commands to the Arduino to move the eyes to the appropriate position. The project goes into great detail, from Arduino code to installing Ubuntu to running OpenCV for the first time!

We’ve featured some of [Glen]’s projects before, like his FPGA-driven LED wall, and it’s good to see he’s still making great things!

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Time to make a formal reveal as to the project I am working on, L33T. The idea behind L3 is to be a personal service robot, to help out wherever he can and interact with people in the household, efectively being a robot butler. 

When thinking of what L3 should be and what it should look like I drew a lot of inspiration from R2, even the naming scheme is similar. R2 was able to manevour well in tight situations, he could 'talk' to and understand people, and was capable of performing bulter like tasks. 

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How this actually works is described about below but also in the video. I suggest you watch the video as my writing is terrible.

Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cEp7duDbNU&feature=plcp

The Processing code : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v9hkdxuoazoyb0d/fCGQzEfBAK The OpenCV and Arduino libraries are needed. OpenCV also needs to be installed onto the computer.

The Arduino code : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ujjlahx83ilv1j2/QB0bu8E-EJ

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Makers need to familiarize themselves with the core concepts and the theory involved in creating applications such as Motion Sensing and Face Tracking. As the technology is churning out new hardware day and night, DIYers need to work hard to keep up and always be in touch with the latest technology around them.

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For example, anyone working with Accelerometers/ Gyroscopes or Inertial Measurement Units needs to understand the theory of Vectors, Force, Gravity and be able to work out complex mathematical problems. They may easily get an Arduino Board and an Accelerometer Breakout or an IMU Board and use a library instead of writing their own code but to truly understand the theory behind it; how the device actually works, is not for the faint of heart.

One such problem is the Face Tracking Application. Unless you know the real theory behind how the Algorithm actually works, you can only wonder about that robot which follows its master. Greg Borenstein had an idea of creating a website dedicated to this issue. Makematics – Math for Makers.

In an introductory post, Greg writes:

” I hope to show that a normal programmer with no special academic training can grapple with these areas of research and find a way in to understanding them. And as I go I aim to create material that will help others do the same. If I can do it, there’s no reason you can’t.”

More and more people should step forward and create or compile a good amount of research data to help fellow makers and DIYers in solving complex mathematical problems.