So as I mentioned in my previous post I’ll be putting any money raised here towards my projects and I thought I’d give two examples of what I have planned.

For my NE-1 robot, based around an old Roomba, it has all its sensors on board which I’ll be able to use but these are typically for near range detection.  To enable mapping and navigation I’m planning on adding a LIDAR scanner which will enable a real time view of a 360 degree sweep around the robot.  These have come down in price but are still around £100.

For the NE-Where robot I have the ODrive, batteries, and motors already but will need to buy parts to make a new frame, this time around out of aluminium extrusion.  The reason for this is it is very easy to work with and reconfigure as well as being very strong.  It’s more expensive than using steel, and I can weld, but for versatility it’s a great solution and one used in many research robots.  I’ve spec’d this up and it’ll cost around £200 or so for the frame and connectors.

I’m very conscious that I’m spending other peoples money and want to make sure I do it right, and be honest about it up front.

I’ll be solidifying my plans over the next few days and figuring out where to start.  I’m very close to finishing MacFeegle Prime but I’ve been saying that for months…  I think the best plan is to start with NE-1 and go back to basics, it’ll get me up to speed with all the basics of manual control.  Once the basics are done, and the NE-Thing controller with them, I can step up to NE-5 to tackle the complexities of stereo vision.

Ah, well, I think I have a plan!