I'm building my own Mars Rover!!

[archiebald]

Thought I'd share this with you guys.





It originated in the UK out of Reading University (where the slightly nutty Professor Kevin Warwick teaches cybernetics) but is now also available in Australia, The Netherlands, Singapore, Germany, France, South Africa and recently Japan.

It's a weekly magazine all about science and robotics that comes with the hardware and software to build your own rover-style robot.  Nothing fancy like MER or Asimo, just a three wheeled bug-like machine but it's a great educational toy for kids and adults alike.

In Japan we are now up to issue 14 so our little robot is now capable of automatically following a light source or following a line on the floor.  The UK is already on issue 46 or so.  As the weeks progress it will get more parts, in the next couple of weeks we'll be adding sonar sensors that will give it collision avoidance or follow-the-leader capability.  Later we'll be building a hand controller (bit like a game-boy Advance), remotely control it by infra red, to program it using a PC link and software, then building a microphone headset and voice recognition circuitry to command it by voice.

My daughter is only 4 now but by the time it is completed she'll be 6 going on 7.  Thanks to this project, she already has a very basic understanding of what a sensor, a circuit board, and infra red light is.

Well worth the money every week as a toy for me and education for her.  If it ever shows up in the USA, I thoroughly recommend it, even if you don't have kids.  I know you can probably buy a ready made robot toy nowadays (such as Lego Mindstorms) that will do much the same but my daughter really loves that she can help Daddy put it together each week and see it do "new tricks".  It also has an interesting side effect that she has already learned to patiently wait for the next issue to arrive.

BTW, my daughter has named it "koko" which means "here!" in Japanese. (it can be set to follow a walking person using its sonar sensors.)

(and to think, when I was a kid, all we had were clockwork trains!!!)

Real Robots UK
A Cybot Builder's home page
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Even though I wish the opposite were true, I really believe that manned spaceflight is not going to escape out of LEO in the next 20~30 years.  With the increase in robotic capability and telepresence, and the significantly lower costs of mounting a robotic mission I firmly believe that the near to medium future of space exploration lies in robots.  I know my daughter is only 4 now but I just hope in some way I can spark her interest, I am convinced it is going to be a top career in the near future.

[spacecat27]

Very true Arch- and brings to mind a couple exposures from the past......

More years ago than I care to remember, I attended a division of Florida Tech known as Hydrospace Tech- whose Dean was a dynamic and likable fellow from Manchester.  He was ahead of his time- predicting a robotics trend in both space and underwater exploration- and wanted to set up a robotics curruiculum as a specialty.  Upper-level management of the university thought he was quite mad, and refused to fund his idea.  Sadly, both the Dean and the Hydrospace division are no longer with us.



Where I live now, one of the high points of my year is serving as a judge for the local County Science Fair.  About ten years ago I watched the progression of a talented young lady through high school who began designing and building robots similar to your "bug" from scratch.  Ultimately she had one that roamed around looking for discarded objects and would then determine if the object (like a bottle or can) was recylable and if so, collect it.  Early on, her thinking was so far beyond the other students that I wondered if she had professional or parental help- until she was showing off her notebooks and in the midst of her explanation realised she had drawn a diode in a circuit backwards and corrected it as she continued her presentation.  I do hope this gal is working for JPL by now!