Most modern hobbyist robots (those that aren't
giant beetles) are just collections of servos plumbed together, shipping with controllers accessed cloaked in proprietary programming environments. They make it easy to get up to speed, but for full control in a standardized dev environment like Visual Studio you want something like the £175.00 ($255) Roboard RB-100. It's built around a Vortex86DX system on a chip, capable of running various flavors of Windows (including XP and CE) or x86 Linux distros -- probably even OSX or Android -- and offering connections for 24 servos, USB, audio, a MicroSD reader, and even a Mini PCI slot. A few builders at the
Robosavvy forums have been working with early boards for a few weeks now and one, ATebay, has found they mount easily to various bots, including his creation above that looks something like an armor-less Wolf Clan Mad Cat ready to conquer the Inner Sphere. Detail pic of the board and obligatory robot dancing video after the break.
posted Apr 22nd 2009 8:13AM
looks more like tai chi than dancing.
Roboard? Robard? Which is it?
Geez, sometimes I feel like I'm Engadget's post-publication editor... one of many...
'Geez, sometimes I feel like I'm Engadget's post-publication editor...'
That may be a sign that you should get out more.
+1 for Battletech reference.
Battletech reference woop
Already bought the new 5th edition re-release with plastic pre-assembled IS units. Man was I geeking out; I have been limited to MegaMek and the top-down game I'm slowly making with Yoyogames's Game Maker 7.
I'm NOT bringing that to the airport...
LOL, no kidding. "officer, i swear to you, it's a robot"
Where can you buy this for $255.00? The lowest price I could find was $289.99 at robotshop.us. And $299.99 at another site.
I got to get me one of these!
Never mind I see the Starter Kit is $289, the single board is $250, my bad.
Huge points for the BattleTech references!!
Nice use of old 3com wake on LAN wires
Another step towards huge Mobile Suit Robots that Humans can pilot.
I just came to a sucky realization... I'll be too old when they need pilots for these. :(
Exactly... :(
They should get going with finding some medicine that makes you stay young, just so we can try these things!
I'm sure that's the motivation that they're working under...
The NEED to pilot Gundam-like robots before they die.
But maybe they'll be developed for personal use, instead of cars?
Hope so...
Wow awesome Btech throwback reference!
I, for one, welcome our overlord-on-a-board!