[RyanN]

Very cool indeed. We're using a Raspberry Pi for our Senior Design project at Mississippi State University. We're attaching one to a robotic blimp.

We decided that driving 3 motors, along with taking in I2C and SPI sensor data, was too much for the Pi (mainly not enough pins on the header to do everything we needed), so we decided to talk to a PIC24 over UART to command motors and sensors. Plus, many of the Pi's lower level controls and communication aren't very mature. We were able to talk to an I2C device using the Pi, and toggle some LEDs on, but PWM output wasn't working so well.

Offloading this also allows us to do more with video streaming. Mainly, the Pi is being used for communication rather than processing data, but as we progress, the use of the Pi's power will be greater.

The Raspberry Pi has great potential for robotics applications. If you're interested in something like this, also have a look at the BeagleBoard and BeagleBone. They're more expensive, but the software they run is more mature.