Virtarium¶

The Virtarium project is about creating a virtual vivarium.

The inhabitants of Virtarium will be virtual creatures.

Current state of the project¶

Documentation - Work in progress
Time spent on project.

Virtual Creatures¶

Virtarium may at some point have the capability of housing various types of virtual creatures. Each virtual creature behavior will need to be defined and implemented specifically.

The first inhabitant of Virtarium will be the VirtariumSwimmer. The VirtariumSwimmers are fish that float around while trying to avoid obstacles. VirtariumSwimmers can be of different types. Some types will try to form schools while other types are loners. Some types will also avoid certain other types of VirtariumSwimmers.

Virtarium may get more inhabitants later on but the current focus is on the VirtariumSwimmer.

Design and Specifications¶

Below are design and specifications for the Virtarium project.

AirSwimmer¶

• Technical Pages - dissection of the AirSwimmer toy discussing the necessary changes

• The things we ordered for the AirSwimmer for the mechatronics project was:
  • 1x Arduino Fio - $24.95 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10116)
  • 2x XBee 1mW Chip Antenna - $22.95 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8664?)
  • 2x Polymer Lithium Ion Battery - $7.95 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10718)
  • 1x servo - $8.95 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9065?) We had very little time when we where ordering so we ordered this servo but it could be to heavy(9g).
  • 1x Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - $27.95 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9836)
  • 1x h-brigde - $2.35 (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/315)

Software Design¶

• Ultimate Virtarium Design

Implementation and real world reach¶

The initial idea with Virtarium is to serve as a platform to control real world remote controlled robots. The reason for starting with the implementation of the VirtariumSwimmer is because we want to be able to hook that up to an AirSwimmer (see also a video here) and have it float around a physical area. Ideally, multiple AirSwimmers will be able to form schools and some might even be defined as predators resulting in the rest of the AirSwimmer individuals avoiding them.

The goal is to have AirSwimmers floating around in the "Sun", the central area of Reykjavik University.