Hello,

My name is Daniel. I live in Culpeper, Virginia with my wife, daughter, and dog. I work as a technician on the Automated Material Handling System for a major semiconductor manufacturer. I'm 41 years old and I've decided to build a robot.

Actually, I've wanted one since I was a kid, and the bug has hit me on and off for years now. Prior to the last few years, though, the technology to do so always seemed out of reach for your average middle class working guy. I'd seen Arduino boards in Radio shack a couple of times, and wondered what it was for. I looked it up online, and found it was for just about anything and everything. I bought a couple of Arduino boards, and a bunch of components, and started working my way through some examples and minor projects. Last summer, the direction of those projects changed when houses in my neighborhood started getting broken into when my family was on vacation. I wished I had a webcam set up in my house so I could see if anyone had broken in. Of course, what's better than a webcam? A webcam on wheels.

Once I had scaled back the ED-201 my imagination immediately started to plan, I decided I wanted a webcam equipped rover to 'guard' the house when we weren't home. While the decision to build it was born in haste due to the break ins, I still want to make it just because... it's a robot. It's cool!

My experience level is not very high. I work on robots in my job, but mostly in a troubleshoot/recover/repair fashion, less in a design capacity. I am very good with software, and have taught myself all the bad habits for programming in VB. I use Visual Studio and VTask Studio to automate a lot of the monitoring functions at my work. I'm not bad with a soldering iron, but certainly not a genius with it. I certainly understand software better than I do hardware, but I enjoy both aspects of my job and my hobbies.

I'm looking forward to reading your posts on your projects, and sharing mine with you. I'm currently waiting for my full kit to arrive, and Roboy will go from being a pipe dream to a reality! (My daughter decided to name my robot Roboy.)

My requirements for a rover are that it: -Have a webcam -Be controllable through the internet -Have the ability to capture pictures and video -Have the ability to navigate through a single floor of my house on its own -Be remote drivable by me through the internet -Have a base unit where it can recharge -Be able to monitor its battery level -Be able to return to that base unit on its own and initiate a recharge cycle without my intervention

Outside of that, I have no other real requirements. I have the Brookstone Rover and a Dagu Rover 5 base, 2 Arduino Duo's, 1 Arduino Mega, 1 Arduino Lillypad, 1 Redback Spyder, a Dagu 4 channel motor controller, an arduino motor shield, and a variety of sensors waiting to be joined by the full kit. I can't wait. :)