A Fully Programmable Mobile Robot

paxmaniac writes "iRobot has announced Create: a new fully programmable mobile robot based on the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. People have been hacking the Roomba since the day it came out. Well, hacking just got a whole lot easier. A command module for the Create provides a programmable 8-bit Atmel micro controller, four DB-9 ports for your own sensors, and a number of sample programs that can be compiled and uploaded to the command module via USB. Botmag has more details and some cool applications. This looks like the perfect robotics platform for hobbyists, schools, and universities alike."

Re:Perfect platform? Really?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Agreed. The NXT is great. I've been doing some hacking to get Lejos running on NXT http://users.actrix.co.nz/manningc/lejos_nxt.jpg [actrix.co.nz] . This is now at alpha stage (code on sourceforge).

Having the hardware specs (schematics etc) has been great. I started this effort before Lego released the firmware and have not used that.

The NXT has a pretty grunt CPU and is capable of much more than a Roomba. Designing and adding 3rd party sensors is a breeze.

Re:Perfect platform? Really?

[Abcd1234]

Sure, but, forgetting the obvious flexibility of a Mindstorms kit, it also comes with touch, light, and ultrasonic sensors, bluetooth capability, three servos, and and bunch of Technics pieces, plus the ability to use any other Technics kits you have. Not to mention new third party gear that will be coming around, such as HiTechnic's 3-axis accelerometer/tilt sensor.

So sure, it's twice as expensive, but looking at it, it seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Re:Perfect platform? Really?

[aralin]

I love the platform, but I saw few of the robots that my nephew built and every single one of them had a little problem, like not strong hand grip or bad walk, that programming them with some really difficult tasks was just pointless. They would reach breakpoint in a first third of anything remotely complex.

I wish there was a humanoid robot with all the sensors and the brick already built so we could just program it and know it will work and execute even a complex program without problems. That would really make it worth while and money.