Friday, July 10, 2009

In Too Deep

So I have decided that a fun, educational hobby would be to turn out a roving robot from my Eee PC Cassima (Yes, I name my possessions and toys. I'm not sorry.) I've been surfing Google results for about 10 minutes now, and it saddens me that I'm already in over my head. To make an obstacle-avoiding self-controlled robot (pet) has more factors than I thought it would.
  • Camera Latency
  • Image processing (identification of obstacles, or even a path)
  • Machinery Control
  • Balance
  • Power Source
  • Body Design
  • How to feel Love
  • And Much More!
The ONLY robotics experience I have is from when I played around with Lego LOGO back in 3rd-6th grade, and everything has taken leaps and bounds since then. I have no idea how to code, and I don't know but the first thing about how computer imaging works. I do think I could build a steady, stable sextpedal robot body, which would move slowly enough to be able to survey it's surroundings before it's next step or turn. The problem thereof, of course, is programmed control of those sets of legs or each leg (I haven't decided yet.)

I have so much to learn it almost edges on hopelessness. But! It breaks my current funk, and if nothing else, if I can pull this off, it's a whole new world of techno-savvy into which I can finally sink my teeth. Robots, man, robots.

Time to crack open the internet. Let's see what I can find.

-The0

1 comment:

  1. I went to a presentation of learning AI back at Westminster where a man wrote an AI that, when placed inside a robotic roach and tasked with moving across a table, conducted a series of trial and error tests with the legs until it learned how to walk.

    It took something like six hours, but eventually the robot learned how to use the legs for propulsion.

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