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Turn Your Smartphone Into A Robot
- sonyal 15y agoI love this idea ... I can't wait to use it to spy on people.... ;)
- heynk 15y agoI already got to play with it, its super fun and works just like you want it to. It's versatile enough to go over cracks and stuff in doorways and the video streaming is very smooth. This is an awesome project to back.
- hendler 15y agoOrdered one. This + Siri opens up some pretty neat possibilities.
- superkinz 15y agoGive me a robot that lets me fight other robots. And can I control this from my iPad rather than a second iPhone?
- appendix_a 15y agoYes, iPad, computer or any phone.
- pragmatic 15y agoDoes the phone have to be activated or will it work over wifi? I've got an HTC Incredible laying around after my upgrade and it would be great to use it for something like this. I'm trying to dig around on the Romo site (http://romotive.com http://romotive.com) but it's up and down. Btw, I bought/funded one.
- daryn 15y agoSuper cool!
- BenoitEssiambre 15y agoThis type of thing could actually spark a robotics revolution. One of the large barrier to entry to robotics is that it is generally built on costly specialty hardware running costly specialty software. Some people have used laptops as 'brains' for robots but they are bulky and often still quite costly. Because of their size, long battery life, gps support, camera, touchscreen, microphone, accelerometer and potential lower price, smartphones are surprisingly well suited as commodity platform for robotics.
- medinism 15y agoI agree. By making a robot with hardware people have laying around and are familiar with it will make it more accessible to the masses.
- sonyal 15y agoI also agree. I cannot wait to see how this platform develops ... and all the apps that Romotive and Hackers will create for it.
- ippisl 15y agoThis also true for other areas of embedded computing.It certainly offers a costs reduction and a lot less work on the hardware. But the biggest impact would be on the software side. By offering a standard platform with alot of performance to spare at low cost, Embedded software could be written in higher level languages(lua/lua-jit seems interesting), use much more standard libraries, and higher level libraries. So we might see a creativity boom in embedded devices, just as we saw when scripting languages started being used for web development.
- marekmroz 15y agoI disagree on "sparking a robotics revolution". It is akin to suggesting that Songsmith sparked a music revolution. Just because something is easier to do does not make it revolutionary, nor does it necessarily advance the field. The barriers to entry that you speak of do not exist, unless you consider an Arduino, a motor shield, some sensors, cables and a breadboard costly speciality hardware. Take a look at www.sparkfun.com or www.pololu.com, all the things that come with an iPhone you can get in form of easily programmable modules. Need GPS? Buy a gps module. Need wireless communication? Get BT or XBEE. Sure, building a robot this way is not as simple as plugging in your smartphone and dragging and dropping some blocks thorough the GUI, but it is not that difficult either, you learn more, and it does not get boring quickly.
- calbucci 15y agoMaybe this is the revolution we need to give a chance to the next generation to have fun programmable robot. I was promised that as a kid and I still don't have it! Contributed!
- emplynx 15y agoI contributed as well. My first Kickstarter project.
- dunkinidaho 15y agoI've seen this in person and it's v cool - just ordered mine!
- nerdmonkey 15y agoI've seen this in person, too. Everyone in the room thought it was awesome and couldn't wait to get one for themselves or their kids to play with. I just ordered one!
- iamintricate 15y agoFinallyyyyy! *breaks open piggy bank
- RodgerTheGreat 15y agoThe audio-jack based interface is very clever- the whole package is wonderfully simple and straightforward. I hope that mass production can bring the price down a bit, though.
- grecy 15y agoCan you expand on that please? Audio-jack interface?
- JL2010 15y agoThey are using the audio jack to send command data to the robot base. Notice how the iphone is not connected through a dock or 30-pin connector. Very clever indeed! Making a "real" iphone accessory through the 30-pin connector is simply not possible for hobbyists/small outfits. This also makes their communication interface with the robot somewhat portable. I like :D
- gregsadetsky 15y agoThe audio port is definitely the right way to interface cheaply (and across different mobile phones). If anyone's interested, there _is_ now a way to interface RS-232 devices from an iPhone using an Apple-approved cable: http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MSRP02 http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MSRP... From what I've heard, negotiations with Apple took a lot of time and were quite "complex". Also, the cable unfortunately costs 80$ (because of the custom, "secret" DRM chip enabling the interface). Which goes to prove that the audio jack goes a long way!
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- aespinoza 15y agoWow.. I was hoping to do something similar with raspberry pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/). I guess my phone can do the trick as well.
- zecho 15y agoWay cooler looking than the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick. I'd be interested in how customizable the base will be.
- blackiron 15y agoThere is something related to this for lego robots and android phones, Google for "do androids dream of lego mindstorms"?. The robots + augmented reality games are a great idea.
- Blunt 15y agoseriously, I don't get it. There are tons of off-the-shelf electronic kits that already do this (ARM, PIC, AVAR, etc)... And most of this is just simple logic. Follow a light beam, follow color, bla, bla, bla... Anything really useful, to me, appears one would need a bit more than a smart phone. Honda's robot comes to mind and that quadraped that supposedly is suppose to help military carry heavy things through tough terrain.
- skybrian 15y agoA smart phone has a camera (possibly two), a microphone, a display, speakers, and WiFi. I'm thinking it would make it quite fun to drive remotely, perhaps on a table top for video conferencing.
- Florin_Andrei 15y agoThe Romo is something a primary school kid could assemble. I'm actually doing various projects (robotics-related and non-related) with AVR and Arduino, and they are definitely not primary-school-friendly.
- Blunt 15y agoso a $400 iPhone or even a $200 smart phone is a better option than some of the $25 robot kits you can buy that have much more to learn from? not buying it.
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago(sigh) You don't have kids, do you? It's not about price, it's about complexity. Plugging an old iPhone into a chassis is something anyone could do, even my 6 year old son. Programming an AVR from scratch is something many adults cannot do.
- beambot 15y agoHNer, Matt Might, did a quick hack (weekend-type) to control a scribbler robot via BlueTooth via smartphone a while back [1]. Given that ROS (Robot Operating System) is being ported to Android, the capabilities for these systems are going to explode! Soon enough, you'll have phone-based robots that have all the accouterments: 3D perception, localization, etc. [1] http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/01/12/ipad-and-iphone-controlled-robot-toys#MattMight http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/01/12/ipad-and-iphone-contro...
- nextparadigms 15y agoDidn't we see something like this at Google I/O? I wonder if that's where they got the idea.
- jamesbritt 15y agoGoogle has introduced their ADK, though even before that it was doable using the IOIO board. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10748 http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10748
- wisesage5001 15y agoI don't see what they need $32,000 for. There was another robot project on Kickstarter a while back that was successfully funded (the Bilibot: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/147564168/bilibot-an-affordable-robotics-platform?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/147564168/bilibot-an-aff... ) for a lot less. The hardware required to prototype the Bilibot is a lot more expensive than to prototype one of these Romos, so I don't get what they need 6 times the funding of the Bilibot project for. $78 per Romo seems fine, but the overall goal seems a bit high.
- DaveMebs 15y agoThis was my first thought as well. I built a similar robot in terms of physical design and motorized capabilities a couple years ago for ~$400. It wasn't controlled by a phone, which will admittedly adds some complexity, but I really can't see their overall hardware costs, including prototypes, getting into the 10's of thousands. Is the expectation here that this is also covering a living wage for the developers? It seems like they would be more successful with a lower funding request with the plan being to make a profit once the device hits market. EDIT: It looks like they aren't even applying a solder mask to the board, which is a really cheap way to improve quality and reliability. For an extensible product that they want people hacking, I'd be spending the few dollars to help minimize short circuits. From my experience, everyone who has skimped and not gotten a solder mask applied to their board ends up regretting it down the line.
- p0ckets 15y agoYou needed to pledge $650 to actually get a Bilibot, versus $78 for a Romo. It looks like for $5665 three Bilibots will be built.
- jamesbritt 15y agoVery cool. Looks like something quite doable using Android device + IOIO board + Arduino
- ytai 15y agoAndroid + IOIO period. No need for an Arduino.
- jamesbritt 15y agoI picked the Arduino for the "rest of the hardware" stand-in. But yeah, could be any hardware.
- jamieb 15y agoCan I have it laying flat with a mirror above the camera?
- zmmmmm 15y agoDone! I've made several half starts at robotics projects, mostly based on Arduino but I always felt exasperated at how weak they were compared to the smartphone in my pocket, which I can already program over a zillion standard interfaces. Getting an Arduino kit with the equivalent of this functionality would cost hundreds of dollars ... this is a steal.
- vril8 15y agoWhy use the proprietary connectors for this? Audio in and out should be more than sufficient an interface for such a simple platform..
- nt_mark 15y agoGreat idea, love the simplicity of the interface (audio jack), just bought one. Best of luck guys