Hi guys,
My name is Jill, and I've been working on an open telepresence platform (letsrobot.tv) for any kind of robot you can think of, and i wanted to open it up to more people. It's kind of a cross between telepresence and live-streaming. You can basically hook up any robot that can run our software to the site for anyone on the internet to control. We have an API & documentation to help you get started.
Hi guys,
My name is Jill, and I've been working on an open telepresence platform (letsrobot.tv) for any kind of robot you can think of, and i wanted to open it up to more people. It's kind of a cross between telepresence and live-streaming. You can basically hook up any robot that can run our software to the site for anyone on the internet to control. We have an API & documentation to help you get started.
This telepresence upgrade lets an employee take part in the office from more than four thousand kilometers away. It’s an upgrade of their previous setup which used a laptop on a rotating platform to add a bit of control to the video conferencing experience. But all that original version could do was swivel, this one lets you drive your virtual self around for fifteen hours between battery charges.
The real work is in the base of the robot, as the audio and video are handled by a tablet independently from the locomotion. The team spent about four hundred bucks to throw the thing together. It starts with a hunk of plywood. Two 3A motors were mated with lawnmower wheels for the front of the bot. Dragging under the back of the base are a couple of casters that make it possible to turn without skidding. A motor shield and a WiFi shield for the Arduino make it possible to control the thing over the Internet. They even added some functionality on the client side to use a PlayStation 3 controller. Check out the completed machine in the clip after the break.
A friend of mine (Dimos) from another site (www.GRobot.gr) started building a tracked robot that would be operated remotely.
