What do you plan to do when the project is complete?
Hmmmm…. Take over the world!
Just kidding. Ha-ha!
We are going to make Proto2 open source by the end of the year. Our robot can be viewed as a relatively cheap four legged platform. We hope to create a growing open source community for this robot platform, so a lot of robot developers around the world can communicate and work together on this project.
The open source hardware & software principle is very important in that kind of project where you can constantly invent new control algorithms and various use cases. We used a lot of free software in this project: Linux, Debian, ROS, OROCOS and open hardware project: Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and so on.
Proto3 is not finished yet, and it’s MUCH harder to build by hobbiest at home. 3D printing does not always allow you to achieve the required quality, factory production is the better option for it. But robot must be ready for mass production, it’s another BIG and difficult task for us. We hope to find a partner for mass production before open it.
Open source? Really? I can build it myself?
Yes, soon! This will include the build instruction, construction description, schematics, printed circuit boards files, control software. We will make a list of all the necessary parts, most of them you can buy in online store. Some unique parts like PCB boards will be possible to buy in our store.
How much it will cost?
Her price is about like a gaming computer or a good 3d printer.
Will it have A.I.?
The real artificial intelligence does not exist yet. Scientists have been working on this problem for many years and have not made much progress. Machines still can’t “think” just like people do. But you can expect some free behavior combined with preprogrammed actions. This kind of A.I. you can see in modern computer games. Also we are working on voice recognition, context analysing, face detection, external events reaction and so on. If you are familiar with high level robot control algorithms like convolutional neural networks, computer vision, voice recognition and want working on this project, drop us a line.
Guns! She need guns!
