BRAT questions. Engineering Club Project

[iambobbay]

Hello everyone!
I am the Vice President of the engineering club at my school and we are looking at purchasing a starter kit to build a robot club mascot. We want a kit that we can expand on and add new features to every semester. We are interested in building a biped kit and are considering the variations of the BRAT. We plan on designing and building expansion parts for the robot using SolidWorks and the 3D printer at school. We want the robot to be able to act autonomously and hope to someday be able to install necessary equipment/programming for speech recognition and communication. I am brand new to the world of robotics and have some basic (probably embarrassing) questions. If anyone cares to provide input on the following questions we would greatly appreciate it!

1.) Is the Biped BRAT Combo Kit (Autonomous) BotBoarduino kit the best kit to purchase to get started considering our needs?
2.) Will the BRAT kit allow for a considerable amount of expansion?
3.) If we continue to modify the BRAT will we be able to add sensor arrays to it easily?
4.) Is there another kit that comes to mind that would better suit our needs than the BRAT?
5.) The autonomous kit does not appear to include the SSC-32 servo controller. Would it be an advantage to have both the BotBoarduino and the SSC-32?
6.) Is the programming interface modifiable enough to allow for additional sensors/servos?

Thank you very much!

Bobby

[cbenson]

1.) Is the Biped BRAT Combo Kit (Autonomous) BotBoarduino kit the best kit to purchase to get started considering our needs?

Can you give us an idea of what you would like it to do?

2.) Will the BRAT kit allow for a considerable amount of expansion?

Refer to #1

3.) If we continue to modify the BRAT will we be able to add sensor arrays to it easily?

Yes

4.) Is there another kit that comes to mind that would better suit our needs than the BRAT?

Many of the full sized humanoids are not very expandable, but do include arms, a head etc.

5.) The autonomous kit does not appear to include the SSC-32 servo controller. Would it be an advantage to have both the BotBoarduino and the SSC-32?

For a robot with only 6 DoF, you don’t necessarily need a separate servo controller. If you add more servos, you might consider a separate servo controller.

6.) Is the programming interface modifiable enough to allow for additional sensors/servos?

The autonomous version is based on Arduino, so if you plan on expanding the functionality, it’s best to learn how to program in Arduino.