You can also buy off-the shelf interfaces for sensors and robots, for example, the Brainstem system for working with robots. posted by plinth at 6:33 AM on October 10, 2000
I'm actually in the process of putting one of these together. The circut board should arrive tomorrow, and I plan on ordering the sensors, wheels and servos later this week.
What's compelling about this project is that it demonstrates just how powerful simple computers can be. So often we get caught up in Gigabytes of RAM and MHz of processor power. We've forgotton what fairly simple programs can accomplish!
And what really blows my mind is the fact that a robot of this nature would have taxed the resources of my old IBM PC XT back in the day.
Anyhow, the instructions for the PPRK (Palm Pilot Robot Kit) are quite easy to follow. I'm most certainly not an engineer or a programmer, but I feel confident that I can get this little guy working.
If there are any other geeks out there who are building, or plan to build one of these, or if you're just interested in seeing how it's coming together, please drop me an e-mail!
posted by plinth at 6:33 AM on October 10, 2000