I'm working with a poppy robot platform as its complete parts list was easy to download and 3D print. I've decided not to use the dynamixel servos and instead made an adapter housing for standard hobby servos to be used. This is great for cost but it may bite me in the butt later as I now have limited support with my robot from the poppyrobot project group and must learn everything on my own. Blah blah Wha Wha.
So my goal is to work through small sections as I get things printed and assembled. So far I have both arms and most of he spine assembled the legs printed and ran out of filiment. :-( These are merely speed bumps. I'm returning to the world of robotics from a nearly 25 year absence mostly cause monetary means and teenage year can't be a geeky nerd all the time. Now however is a much different story. Everything is much more economical and with this site and others like it my knowledge base is making the concept seem much simpler and more attainable.
Anyways back to the robot. I've always like the Johhny-5 robot and I could by a premade kit to go along with my ssc32 but where would the fun be in that and it doesn't serve my end goal for my robot besides inspiration.
For my robot I want it to be;
Autonomous with some learning AI abilities *have no idea how to get there but that's why I'm here*
Be able to climb stairs *Hence biped chassis*
Needs to be mobile and quick *hmmm... place tracks on legs as feet. Zips around chasing my kids at a quicker pace and has the ability to climb stairs*
Telepresence would be a nice option *integration of old android smartphone... Hmmm... GPS, acelorometer, gyroscope, vision, and from reading others posts lost of other available sensors.
I'm hoping it's not too ambitious a project but if I take it small work on the priciples of each area arm movements and programming, leg, tracks, sensors, inverted pendulum movements and 3mlimp I should have a very capable robot and hopefully keep the budget to well within my $500.00CAD goal. So far I'm doing pretty good. 52 hobby servos, 2 ssc 32 controllers, an arduino uno clone, IR sensor, gyro/acelorometer, an Rpi, old motorola lux smartphone or my busted screen Samsung galaxy s4 and I think I'm barely topping the 300.00 mark most of which was 52 3.00 hobby servos. They may need to be replaced with stronger ones as time goes by but for now I think I have a good bin of parts to practice with.