CoroWare's CoroBot encourages DIY robotic deployment
By Darren Murph 
posted May 16th 2007 3:11AM
posted May 16th 2007 3:11AM
Homegrown robotics have been sneaking around the scene for quite some time, and while we've seen instances of DIY kits coming in at (somewhat) reasonable prices, CoroWare is apparently hoping to nab a bit more of that untapped market. Hailed as an "affordable and flexible mobile robot for researchers, hobbyists, and developers in the industrial and service robot segments," the CoroBot indeed packs quite a punch. Judging by the 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 20GB hard drive, front and rear IR sensors, 640 x 480 resolution camera, and eight digital inputs / outputs that this thing sports, we don't envision it shipping out to many newbies regardless of the marketing. Furthermore, the device is compatible with Microsoft Robotics Studio, sports an option for a robotic arm capable of four degrees of freedom, and even boasts five pounds of base payload capacity. Unfortunately, for those of you still hoping to snap one up on the cheap, chances are you'll be sorely disappointed by CoroWare's definition of inexpensive, as the June-bound bots start at $2,499 and head north to $3,499 when tricked out.
A couple of friends and I saw their booth at the Robobusiness expo yesterday. Along with a couple other booths, they were right next to the Microsoft booth because they were a "Microsoft partner." It seemed like a very lame attempt by MS to appear like they were being accepted by the general robotics community. Anyway, the girl at the booth explained that the Corobot was linux compatible but didn't have any details as to whether or not the drivers were actually ported. Also, the 1.2 Ghz CPU is a VIA-based processor.
The booth to the right (I wish I remembered the vendor's name) of the Coroware's had a bunch of very small and relatively inexpensive laser range finders for about $3000. I think mounting one of them on top of a Coroware bot could make for a pretty good kit solution.
Why is it necessary to assume that the nearby location was some attempt by Microsoft to imply something inappropriate about the acceptance of it's SDK?
Coroware has been a supporter of Microsoft Robotics Studio since we first introduced our SDK.
Further, let's be honest, the entire exhibit space wasn't that huge, so while Coroware was closer than other companies, that was their choice and any other booth on the floor was probably within 100 feet of the Microsoft booth.
Finally, while perhaps not being supported by every robotics company, there are a number of companies that are supporting what we do.
So why assume something negative here? Even the guys who initiated Player-Stage welcomed Microsoft to participate in the robotics community. If you are happy with the development software you are using, great, we aren't looking to convert you. We are just looking to help expand the market/audience for creating robotics applications.