This is the completed first version of the emotive eyes project. It was successful in that it was motivation to re-calibrate my 3d printer and make some modular eyes for future projects. I am not really satisfied with the animations and would like to work further on that for version 2.
Currently each eye is powered by its own Raspberry Pi Pico. In future revisions, I would like several eyes to be daisy chained to a single Raspberry Pi Pico. I will accomplish this by writing a bitmap based animation program that updates the eyes in locksteps with their own unique animations. This will bypass the current problem where each eye has unique movements. Another approach I might consider is running a simple OS on the Raspberry Pi to enable multiprocessing. Something to think about.
I would like to learn more about animation. From the few videos I’ve watched on YouTube, one reason my animations look somewhat dull and lifeless is that the movements and changes are very evenly spaced and ponderously rhythmic. Adding variation in speed, shape, and brightness might also improve the appearance and expressiveness. I will think and study more on this for version 2.
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