DIY Robotics: The Rise of Open Source Hardware

ivankirigin · on March 7, 2008

Working with the real world is different than software. Shit breaks. Physical matters are fuzzy.

Commodity hardware has already done a great deal for robotics, but it takes high quality tools and intelligent sensor analysis to do smart things.

Yah, it's easy to hack together a Braitenberg Vehicle. It is hard to make something real.

All that said, I think robotics is an excellent education medium for all engineering. More people should make robots. Their expectations need to be realistic. You won't make something that can put away your dishes, but you might make a rooomba for 5X the cost iRobot does. Not Bad!

jlhamilton · on March 7, 2008

"You won't make something that can put away your dishes..."

Unless you're like Trevor. http://www.anybots.com/dishwasher2.jpg

ivankirigin · on March 7, 2008

I like using Anybots as an example actually. They're on a good track. But...

1. they are completely teleoperated, skipping some hard perception problems.

2. they're still solving a really hard problem that will take years.

So if you're just starting out, don't expect to be as good as smart people that have been working on it for years.