Gadget is a robot that I first built in the 1990's starting from an R/C truck chassis and a custom-built 68HC11 low-level controller and a 386 PC for primary navigation. While the robot did originally have around 12 AH batteries onboard, the PC was extremely power-hungry so the robot rarely ran for more than about 10 minutes at a time without a tether from bench power. A couple of years ago my kids found Gadget packed away in some of my old stuff and wanted to get it out and play with it. While we were playing and talking about it, we got the idea to rebuild it using modern components from today. So we stripped it down and have been busy building it back up again into Gadget-NG. You can see the whole project log here: https://goo.gl/photos/TP142vnwBj2b9E6EA
I’ve already got one-- although I have been making the kids set it up and get it calibrated, and their interest waxes and wanes. (I want them to go through all the aspects of troubleshooting and such so they get the experience) I’ve collected parts to build a new one for myself and as soon as I get some free time I’m going to build a new one. The current one is a Kossel / Delta model. The new one will be some sort of cartesian variety. I’ve got a general design thought out, but that’s as far as I’ve gone with it. I’ve also collected a lot of filament ahead of time to use with them. My own projects are pushing me a bit to get a 3D printer up and running, so it will likely happen sooner rather than later.
