Bug Eye Specs
Arduino Duelliminova or BBB - $16
Blue Tooth Module - $10
AdaFruit motor sheild (too much)
Tamiya tank chassi
Foscam IP Camera - $50 - This is the first IP Camera I have made a service for in MRL. SDK is <<here>>. The forums say the manufacturer is interested is publishing it SDK, although the only reference I have found was on someones home site. Hopefully, I will be able to incorporate other IP Cameras into this service.
Minimum Unit Specs
Blue Tooth Module $10
BBB $16
2 X Continuous Servos + Wheels $16
Sensors of your choice
Objective - is to have a stable robot platform so it can be a testbed for public experimentation and MRL development. The system will need to be robust. This is one of the major challenges which I have had and a serious detriment for meaningful development.
Although Bug Toy could be completely untethered I chose to run a power line to the bot.
Power can be a major headache for development. Power issues are typically the major cause of breakdowns which I have had. Even in common computers the most common issue plaguing computers are power unit problems.
I was thinking of possible solutions. Roomba had a good solution regarding navigating to a recharger. However, I would want the ability to quickly switch, rather than dock and wait. A possible solution would be a recharging rack. When the robots battery ran low it could auto-navigate to a rack of batteries charging and select the next fully charged unit. This would eliminate the "waiting to charge" time.
It One would be a battery charging rack.