Most of this has been acquired over the last two years (I bought he RoboSapien around Christmas 2005). Some of it was purchased due to me thinking it was necessary. I’m still not certain I have all the right things that I will need. It’s the experimentation that makes this FUN afterall!! 🙂 Plus my kids love playing with the toys too (especially the farting RoboSapien)
I guess previous to all of this I did buy a copy of the Lego Mindstorms Robot building kit. My son (who is now 7) has pretty much taken it over. I think I bought it when he was 2, and only built 1 or 2 of their robots.
Some people have done some pretty amazing things with the kit. I recall hearing about a pop machine, and a web camera that you could call into and control using the Lego hardware.
Anyways, here’s where I’ve been spending my money and spare time…
- desktop PC is a Windows XP 3Ghz P4 with 1.5GB RAM
- laptop PC is an old Toshiba Satellite with Fedora 6
- NSLU2 with OpenSlug; running off 1GB USB memory stick
- ASUS WL-330 for wireless net access
- Logitech orbit web camera
- K8055 USB experimenters board
- old chassis from a remote control car (w/12V battery)
Other bits that I have and thought I would have a use for but may not..
- PIC Programmer P8048.1 from Velleman
- Parallax Basic Stamp 2 programmer board (x2)
- Parallax USB oscilliscope (very cool!)
- RoboSapien v1.0
- old HP iPAQ PocketPc h4100
- Spectec SD camera SDC-001A
I had started down the trail of trying to make the RoboSapien autonomous by using an old PDA. There is a lot of work in the robotics community around the RoboSapien, and that I think is what really got me started with all of this..