This 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.
I 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.
This 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.
I 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.
The 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.
Maybe 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!
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.
This 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.
HNer, 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.
Done! 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.
There 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.
I'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!
seriously, 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.
A 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.
[+] [-] BenoitEssiambre|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] marekmroz|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ippisl|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sonyal|14 years ago|reply
I cannot wait to see how this platform develops ... and all the apps that Romotive and Hackers will create for it.
[+] [-] medinism|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heynk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hendler|14 years ago|reply
This + Siri opens up some pretty neat possibilities.
[+] [-] RodgerTheGreat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calbucci|14 years ago|reply
Contributed!
[+] [-] emplynx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wisesage5001|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
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|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superkinz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] appendix_a|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beambot|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.hizook.com/blog/2011/01/12/ipad-and-iphone-contro...
[+] [-] aespinoza|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zmmmmm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] blackiron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zecho|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nt_mark|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesbritt|14 years ago|reply
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10748
[+] [-] jamesbritt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ytai|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonyal|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dunkinidaho|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdmonkey|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamieb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Blunt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skybrian|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Florin_Andrei|14 years ago|reply
I'm actually doing various projects (robotics-related and non-related) with AVR and Arduino, and they are definitely not primary-school-friendly.
[+] [-] daryn|14 years ago|reply