Audio frequency response

Elsie receives sound in the frequency domain, similar in range to human hearing.  In other words, incoming sound is digitized and organized according to pitch.

It is no accident that Elsie's hearing range is similar to a humans.  After all, her hardware was designed for use by humans, and has been engineered to work well in the human range of frequencies.

Elise categorizes sound into 235 frequencies, from 27.5 Hz (a low "A" note) up to 23679.51 Hz.  The human ear can distinguish many more frequencies than 235.¹  Specifically Elsie is tuned to the musical frequencies, at quarter-step intervals.

¹http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/earsens.html

Rigging up the sound

For audio processing, Elsie will be using the audio library known as the Jack Audio Library.  This decision is based on allowing Elsie very low-level access to the audio, without requiring root permissions.  Also, Jack has a very flexible interface, allowing configuration changes to be made easily.

Corpus

As of today, Elsie has a body.  It's a laptop, with all the modern conveniences.  Wireless internet connection, bluetooth, dvd, and integrated webcam, microphone and audio.

Here are the specifics for anyone interested:

ASUS U46E: i7 processor

Shrunk Win7 partition to a minimum, leaving 512GB remaining.

Debian with kernel 3.1.0

... and Elmer

While scanning the web for other instances of the name Elsie, I found an interesting pair of AI robots built around 1949.

Grey Walter built robot tortoises capable of seeking out sources of light sources.  They moved around obstacles to get closer to a light bulb.   The first two robots were named Elsie and Elmer.

You can see them in action by following their trails in time-lapse photography.

There is a history of these robots at The Walter Grey Online Archive.