Not having a Facebook profile. I’ve had someone initially refuse to associate with me on the basis that they couldn’t investigate my life beforehand.
I just laughed and asked them how they managed to survive before the Internet (we were both old enough). We both got over the weirdness of the situation, built a robot, and were friends for a while before they moved away.
Well, you can have one now, if you want!
I usually build around the Pi pico as a brain, L9110 motor controllers, N20 DC brushed motors, and a standard 18650 lithium cell, and some generic BMS + switch mode voltage converters. From there you can either add sensors and make it autonomous (more challenging), or just control it via your smartphone (easier). You can either make it omnidirectional with mecanum wheels, (more expensive) or turn/forward/back motion only with a differential drive.
Along the way you’ll learn to solder and code, if you don’t know already. It’s a suitable beginner to intermediate project. Most of the work is knowing what cheap parts work well together (read and interpret lots of datasheets), actually assembling and using the robot is pretty easy. Usually I can keep cost under 50$, but parts are cheap here – certainly under 75$ in the West though.
Well damn… Now I have another project!
I have a Pi 3 sitting around that I used to use for Octoprint, but when I rearranged my workstation I didn’t have room for the monitor so I just went back to SD carding it. I picked up an end of service Chromebook that I was going to dump Linux on and make it my new print server, so the Pi is free.
I’m going to end up with my own little astromech Droid!
For increasing the number of robots in the world, mainly!
I create things for filthy lucre all day at work – “those must stoop, who gather gold”. In my limited spare time, I mostly do the opposite – I create things mostly just to create things, I don’t worry about practical applications :D
I do design robots for STEM education at work though, and it shared a lot with those designs…
