

Robinica: New 2 wheeled, programmable robots - e1ven
http://www.robonica.com/products.html

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skolor
Huh, its kind of cool, but it definitely seems like vaporware to me. I can't
find any prices for it anywhere, but I did find a few mentions of it being
released "Q3 2008".

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replicatorblog
I think there is a lot of cool potential for a toy robot based start up that
adds a layer of polish to a Mindstorms style interface.

Something that focused more on a narrative than the educational aspect of
designing robots. Imagine small rc bots that could be improved with new
features/functionality via "expansion packs".

For example you could have a base bot that you could add tank treads to or go
with a biwheel design like these bots. You could design games to play with the
robots like a sumo experience, a rockem sockem thing with touch sensors, etc.
different designs would give advantages in different games.

Combine addictive World of WarCraft style character customization with a
relatively affordable robotics platform and you have a decent product for the
$21B toy industry. Someone should do this for YC.

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mhb
Why are these (whatever they are - no way to tell from the content-free site)
of any more interest than Mindstorms or Vex?

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ivankirigin
Neither mindstorms or vex are very good programming environments. I'd like to
see an open linux box with client libraries in a bunch of languages.

The controller should be in a browser for any laptop that can connect to wifi
or bluetooth, with a web server on the robot. No one should be building GUIs
for a particular environment. You could also build a heroku-like environment
to write code for the robot from the browser. You could add a graphical layer
for kids who could eventually graduate to code.

I thought this when I was working on robotics, and even more so having worked
on the web for a while.

I don't know if this system does this stuff. To my knowledge, no one does yet.

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mhb
Maybe the new Vex WiFi improves that situation:

<http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexnet-upgrade-bundle.shtml>

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pmichaud
It's under "Products" but there is no place to buy it or see a price. That's
what I want to do.

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maxklein
It seems boring. What will it do, roll against a wall, then roll back?

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speek
These things remind me of cylon raiders on wheels, but cool nonetheless.

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replicatorblog
I was thinking the tank droids from the Star Wars prequels. The product seems
kind of lame, but the industrial design of the wheels is pretty sweet.

