I am in the process of converting an old VAX vacuum cleaner into a robot. His name is PI-ro
I have inserted a Pentium 4 motherboard into the robot and run remote desktop to it by wifi from my laptop. The idea is to make PI-ro self contained. I am currently adding to its voice response vocabulary and have just finished cutting the spur tooth gears for the main wheel motors. I am waiting on my EZ Robot order to arrive which will let PI-ro do more than run around in circles.
The name PI-ro originated from my early plans to develop a robot using the Raspberry PI until I discovered the EZ Robot system, however the name stuck.
The following video shows PI-ro's first test drive with computer and associated components removed.
Have a look at the following Youtube video:
Will keep progress updated on this website.
Regards Martin Western Australia
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I like it. I will follow your work. Good Luck!
Hi all....just a little update. It has been a while since I last posted any info on the project. The job and family life tend to take up most of my time. Recently I have been able to spend a little time. My experiments in adding an inbedded computer have shown how quickly the internal batteries are drained with an atx pentium 4 motherboard. I have decided to get the project up and running with the ARC software running on an external laptop to allow the development of the scripts and other functions. Once this is complete then I will turn my attention to the onboard migration of the computer. I have been thinking an imbedded computer could take the form of a NUC or micro itx motherboard. The NUC is tempting as it is contained in a nice little package. I have included a few pics.
The motors have been brought inboard above the driving wheels as they needed more substantial mountings.
I am using the mp3 trigger driving an audio amplifier with speakers attached. I have been able to tame the processor and servo noise interference to an acceptable level by putting some electro caps across the input and output of the audio amp.
The head is progressing. I have used a child's toy pair of binoculars and fitted blue bright LED's and the camera mounted internally between. I have successfully enabled face and colour tracking. Speech recognition is working though I think it needs some refining which will come as I fine tune the robot before his commissioning!
So generally I am having a lot of fun building this project and will provide a video once the head is secure.
Great! Out of all the vacuum cleaner robot, this one is my favorite. Like the head.
Is that a Slinky your useing for a neck? Sweet!