You can also compare it to musical box where a cylinder with tiny pins plays a melody on a metal comb. Automator learns by example: Each relay can be controlled with a key. When you press the keys to control the relays, Automator records your actions for later playback.
This type of device may be useful for many applications. The prototype has been built for a mechanical sculpture. See the right column of this page for more examples. It uses Objective Development’s firmware-only USB driver for Atmel’s AVR microcontrollers to download and upload program files.
Windows Host Software
Contrary to most of our other projects, this one focusses on Windows (other operating systems are still supported, of course). Since we wanted to provide a single executable which does not require installation, we have implemented this device as a HID. See our HIDKeys project for details about HIDs. We used native Windows API calls to communicate with the device.
Automator uses only free development software and libraries. No software from Microsoft, not even the Driver Development Kit (DDK) is required. It can be compiled with MinGW and uses the lightweight GUI toolkit FLTK.
Download
| Download Automator | ||
|---|---|---|
| Automator.2012-12-08.tar.gz |  Download | 388 kB |
| Automator.2012-12-08.zip | Download | 423 kB |
| Automator.2007-03-29.tar.gz | Download | 344 kB |
| Automator.2007-03-29.zip | Download | 357 kB |
| Automator.2006-03-26.tar.gz | Download | 322 kB |
| Automator.2006-03-26.zip | Download | 336 kB |
| Automator.2006-02-20.tar.gz | Download | 316 kB |
| Automator.2006-02-20.zip | Download | 327 kB |
| Automator.2006-02-12.tar.gz | Download | 314 kB |
| Automator.2006-02-12.zip | Download | 325 kB |
Release Notes
Release 2012-12-08
- 1M resistor on D+ is now pull-down instead of pull-up. A pull-up in conjunction with the zener diode results in an undefined voltage on D+ if no USB host is connected.
- Updated USB driver to latest version.
- Fixed warnings and error with latest compiler/avr-libc versions.
Interactive Fountain
Automator has been used to control an interactive fountain artwork. Magnetic valves control the water flow to a bathtub and a basin, both made of concrete, and a shower. The sequence of valve activations is triggered by two IR motion detectors.
