Tech-heads: how hard would it be to actually make a tickling machine?

[TicklingTips]

Hi all. Was just look at some cool home-made tech on instructables.com. They've got stuff like a painting robot, small robots that can move around, devices that control objects in your house through the internet...and it got me thinking, how difficult would it be to make a small tickling machine, say, small enough that it just moved one feather around, that could be controlled remotely over the internet? I don't claim to have the expertise myself but it seems like we're suddenly at the point where that's actually cheap and feasible using things like a raspberry pi, intel edison, or arduino, and some simple electronics parts from your local store.

I guess the more difficult part might be programming it to respond to commands coming through the internet. I'm imagining a simple device where a user inputs a pattern or movements on a computer or phone, and the robot traces those movements with a feather. For extra usefulness, attach a webcam so the "tickler" can see what is being tickled and respond accordingly. So it's almost a form of remote tickling.

 

[tksleepwalker]

Based on a little experiment i did a while back with some tech to build a rudimentary protorype, Id say its very easy to "Build" and "assemble" a machine. The hardest thing, in my opinion, would be the programming of it. thats where all the problem solving comes in.

All the components required are already out there, in a variety of price options. All it needs is time, patience, And the ability to work through problems and find creative solutions.

 

[Volsung]

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a "place" in the form, like the chat room, where you could download an app, and use this app to control a feather contraption... Kind of an offshoot of the chat room. This is not that difficult to imagine actually. There is already a computer device, shall we say, to remotely please men...

 

[ElFewja]

I interpreted this two ways. It seems like the OP is talking about creating a remote control tickling tool, as opposed to a 'tickle robot'. I'm not super technical -- I'm sort of a pc technician, sort of, and I know a little bit of programming but not enough to tackle this -- but I'll give an answer a shot.

Tickle tool bot: This is possible and probably not that difficult to make. Honestly, I could probably sit around for a week, study some things and learn how to make something like this. I think most people could. Like I said, it would be rudimentary though. Very basic. What I'm imagining right now would be something wired to a device akin to a video game controller: up down left right, and then start/select to speed up/slow down, with a/b/x/y to maybe switch between 'techniques' or 'tools', like swapping to a different tickle-head. In this scenario I'm thinking of something like an electric toothbrush with variable speeds, where you can move the head up and down and maybe hit a button to spin to a different sized head.

I would say this would be a 'fair' on difficulty terms.

The issue I would have is that it's a tool, and you were talking about it being remote controlled. It would become increasingly difficult to properly tickle with this device as a large amount of 'tickling' comes by responding, that is, changes in what you're doing and how you're doing it which a tool of this caliber will not be able to easily do. It would be more of a sustained type of tickling over a small area, which I've seen discussed elsewhere is not an effective way to tickle.

You have inspired me and should I get the chance in the not so distant (as in, not near but not far) future I might try to spin something together. Like I said, I don't think it'll be much more than an electric toothbrush that I can move remotely, with varying speeds.

As for an actual tickle robot:

I don't know how you would create such a thing right now. Tickling between two people is about interaction, responding to stimuli (hearing harder laughter or catching someone 'lose their shit' when you hit a spot in a specific way'). Just creating a robot that could move in a variety of ways and 'attack' an individual even close to the complexity that a human would tickle another human would be incredibly difficult by itself, but harder still would be properly programming the bot to interpret the stimuli. You can't really go by noise levels because that's not necessarily indicative of anything, though that might be the best way. I don't have a strong grasp of the biology behind tickling, but I imagine heart rate/bloop pressure increases during a session so maybe you could track it that way, but that also seems unreliable.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do create such a robot, but I don't know how you would program it to gauge responses on it's own.

I'm hoping to hear some feedback on my (overly verbose) response so I can break these mental barriers and maybe think of a way to actually do it haha. Not that I will, I just want to know if it's possible.

**Edit**

I used the word programming a few times in regards to the tickle tool-bot. I don't think you would actually have to program anything. This device would almost certainly be mechanical.

**Edit 2**

Thought a bit more about it. I think rather than something like an electric toothbrush that moves around/in/out something more like a 'tickle sock' might work better, with several vibrating sensors and an on/off switch with speed controls for each one might work better. That would also be a lot easier to make. Maybe. I don't know.

So there's the tickle shoes fantasy right there lol. That's definitely doable.

 

[tksleepwalker]

I interpreted this two ways. It seems like the OP is talking about creating a remote control tickling tool, as opposed to a 'tickle robot'. I'm not super technical -- I'm sort of a pc technician, sort of, and I know a little bit of programming but not enough to tackle this -- but I'll give an answer a shot.

Tickle tool bot: This is possible and probably not that difficult to make. Honestly, I could probably sit around for a week, study some things and learn how to make something like this. I think most people could. Like I said, it would be rudimentary though. Very basic. What I'm imagining right now would be something wired to a device akin to a video game controller: up down left right, and then start/select to speed up/slow down, with a/b/x/y to maybe switch between 'techniques' or 'tools', like swapping to a different tickle-head. In this scenario I'm thinking of something like an electric toothbrush with variable speeds, where you can move the head up and down and maybe hit a button to spin to a different sized head.

I would say this would be a 'fair' on difficulty terms.

The issue I would have is that it's a tool, and you were talking about it being remote controlled. It would become increasingly difficult to properly tickle with this device as a large amount of 'tickling' comes by responding, that is, changes in what you're doing and how you're doing it which a tool of this caliber will not be able to easily do. It would be more of a sustained type of tickling over a small area, which I've seen discussed elsewhere is not an effective way to tickle.

You have inspired me and should I get the chance in the not so distant (as in, not near but not far) future I might try to spin something together. Like I said, I don't think it'll be much more than an electric toothbrush that I can move remotely, with varying speeds.

As for an actual tickle robot:

I don't know how you would create such a thing right now. Tickling between two people is about interaction, responding to stimuli (hearing harder laughter or catching someone 'lose their shit' when you hit a spot in a specific way'). Just creating a robot that could move in a variety of ways and 'attack' an individual even close to the complexity that a human would tickle another human would be incredibly difficult by itself, but harder still would be properly programming the bot to interpret the stimuli. You can't really go by noise levels because that's not necessarily indicative of anything, though that might be the best way. I don't have a strong grasp of the biology behind tickling, but I imagine heart rate/bloop pressure increases during a session so maybe you could track it that way, but that also seems unreliable.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do create such a robot, but I don't know how you would program it to gauge responses on it's own.

I'm hoping to hear some feedback on my (overly verbose) response so I can break these mental barriers and maybe think of a way to actually do it haha. Not that I will, I just want to know if it's possible.

**Edit**

I used the word programming a few times in regards to the tickle tool-bot. I don't think you would actually have to program anything. This device would almost certainly be mechanical.

**Edit 2**

Thought a bit more about it. I think rather than something like an electric toothbrush that moves around/in/out something more like a 'tickle sock' might work better, with several vibrating sensors and an on/off switch with speed controls for each one might work better. That would also be a lot easier to make. Maybe. I don't know.

So there's the tickle shoes fantasy right there lol. That's definitely doable.

IF you are really serious about taking a jab at building one, id be glad to help. Check my blog here, I built a very rudimentary Arduino based bot a while back.

You can get everything you need for under 100$ in terms of hardware. AS for the software, thats the tricky part. the key is to keep the hardware very very basic.

Arduino uses its own version of C#, i think.

What you will need for the basic setup, like the one i did:
a)Arduino board.
b)servo shield to manage the servos. it has enough power to run 2 basic servos, if you go with more than 2 it would need a power component and a bigger shield.
c) Rotary servos, They do the back and forth motion on one axis (or full continuos rotation ). You can use those directly with tools like feather or brush. Of course, the heavier the tool, the more power you need from the servo, and in turn higher voltage.


That is a very basic build. The biggest issue was with the placement/location of the servos. I had to improvise with lego and building toys. Also, using a long flexible peacock feather made things simple. I didn't have to worry about The distance of the feather from the body.

I had ideas to make it more complex but finding a way to run it on another axis, but that mean more servos and more programming. so i just left the project until the future offered cheaper tools.

 

[ElFewja]

Oh man, yeah I read your stuff just now. Living the dream eh? Lol.

Yeah no, good work. Far more complex than I had envisioned. It's a neat project and worth investigating in a few years. It doesn't sound like it would be time consuming but I'm not really in a good place to work on stuff like that right now. Gotta make dat money.

 

[tksleepwalker]

No problemo. And good luck Amigo!


If anyone else is interesting in trying this out, I'm ready to help any time.