You have not fileld out the “aditional information” when submitting the robot, but on the picture I can see that you are using my fovorite; Picaxe 28 board
There is no problem with you using a secondary circuit for the IR - but just for the record; The 28-board has that build in; You just have to add the IR sensor and a few other resistors etc.
I totally agree that voice is paramount. And so I wnt on and tested the “Soundgin” chip. And I just write this to warn you - this chip and it´s documentation is a mess. Nobody can firure out to really use it, and there is no suppert. Many, many errors in documentation, do not go for it!
I have never done a robot with voice - I’d love to. Just as you say; read out temperature, or “There is 23 inches from me to you” that kind of usefull but funny stuff
Fantastic job on your first robot. I like the big bolts on the canopy (metal?) . Great video too, what did you use to do the captioning? I use Linux mostly, but have not found a free video captioning program yet. So voice next, thats a great idea. Do you thing you’d be interested in this project -> Jabo ?