[rphln]

Building and (most importantly) programming one of those was a pipe dream back when I used to browse Let's Make Robots a bunch of years ago.

Sadly nowadays I just can't get into these projects that'd need me to spend money and would just sit on a drawer until the ends of the time after completed.

[TaylorAlexander]

Somehow my whole life I have been able to commit most of my spare time to projects like this (I even built two hexapods like this in high school, over 20 years ago). I do hear what you say often from other people. All I can say is that finding a way to get yourself to do it can be very rewarding. I have so many projects I am proud of, and learning to make new things has helped me jump career paths multiple times - I now have my dream job.

Find some way to do it! Its super fun.

[Arcanum-XIII]

I got rebuked about my hobby using this logic quite a lot. I learned a lot of skills though: drawing and sculpting, programming, playing music, some electronics, rc building, 3D printing, welding… nearly all of those are useful in my professional career: app dev, logo design, web site dev, project management, construction project (structural welding), currently building an automated vehicle for inspection on the side… And even some of my oddest hobbies lead me to works because I meet interesting people while practicing them.

And it was fun to develop those skill. I can even share the remains (like those big RC cars) with my children. So now… I do whatever is fun.

Even a big spider robot. It got me working on understanding trigonometry for now… and handling a lot of servo.

[jonathankoren]

Ultimately they're toys. Personally, I find making the projects more interesting than actually having them. In fact, there's plenty of times I started to dread finishing the project, because then I'd have to figure out what to do with it when I was done.

[r2_pilot]

I have that exact problem right now. I've got a bespoke 16 pound robot chassis with Jetson Orin nano and a Teensy, and there's all kinds of sensors, and it's connected to the motor controller with wheels, a DepthAI camera that can identify individuals, and at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of loosely coupled components lol at least I'm almost done with the main integrations and can focus on the way the subcomponents interact.

[jacquesm]

This goes for pretty much all of my projects except tools. Those get used all the time. But most of the things that I built out of a 'wonder if' feeling end up being super useful in terms of learning and skills development but usually not so much in real utility. With some exceptions. It's also why I've more or less decided that my future projects should produce something small enough to keep around without taking up half an acre of space.

[r2_pilot]

I have a hexapod design I was making with rds 3115 motors. I bought them before I did the rest of the math. For a while(since before 2020) they definitely sat underutilized. Since clawing back free time, I've repurposed them finally.

[tamimio]

I agree, I have many of similar mini-robots (like the AgileX limo [1]) and they are not used all the time, and I think that’s ok, not all the stuff you have used all the time either, including your phone apps, but I try to keep them as useful and reusable as possible, instead of just a “toy”.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agilexrobotics/limo-mul...

[zingelshuher]

You can add Raspberry Pi Zero 2 and camera. That's enough hardware for PHd++. In other words for a few hundred $$ you can get more hardware than you can handle. I wish I had something of it when I was a kid. If you are interested in robotics, vision, AI today is the best time in mankind history. Tomorrow will be better, and nobody knows what after that.