So here is some update on Stanley- Last fall Jim gave me a little tutorial on Pro tools, and I have worked with it in my studio, so I can now record new tracks for Stanley as needed.  I used it to have Stanley sing Happy Birthday for a friend.  Stanley rode on his bike through a restaurant to the table and sang the song..Unfortunately I was hoping that it would also allow me to record Stanley's movements separately, but that is not possible as is.

I recently have been concentrating on making him more independent. I bought an FM transmitter, so that I could control Stanley from a distance with the ipod.  But FM transmission does not keep the signal from the L/R channels completely separate, and the loud servo motor control track sound bleeds over Stanley's voice.  So I decided to split the signal at the Ipod.  I had a broken set of wireless headphones- I gutted it and repackaged the receiver into a small box. I made a custom Y-cable that feeds out of the ipod and splits the signal to the FM transmitter (voice), and the wireless transmitter (servo control).  SO now Stanley could be across the room with a radio in his belly and I could play Ipod tracks without touching him.  

 
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Hello this is Joseph Silovsky and I am just writing to give everyone a general idea of what my focus for the DPI residency will be. Last year I was a part of the Labapalooza puppet lab at St Anne’s Warehouse, and I developed a performance called The Jester of Tonga (I have been researching it for 5 years). As part of the show I built Stanley, an animatronic robot, to play the part of the Jester. Stanley has many skills, including talking, looking around, and riding a tricycle. My main focus here at DPI is to develop his other possibilities.
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