[Andy A.]

Wow. This is quite the endevor!

Technical limitations of the Edu controller aside, I think a big issue will be recongnizing humans.

I remeber reading a book called 'Flesh and machine' a year or two back. It was written by a MIT prof. In a small section of the book, a few of his students made a small 'bot in the 80's (I think) that would give tours of the MIT robotics lab. It would just roam around the halls untill it 'saw' a human. There, it would pause a foot or so in front of the human, and wait till it moved. If the person didn't move, the 'bot assumed that the person wanted a tour, and took off on a preprogrammed route, along with a taped voice over.

I don't remeber there being much technical detail in the book, but it might be worth looking into. From what I remeber, that 'bot used IR sensors that could detect the heat off a human. By looking at just the right tempiture range, they avoided the 'bot trying to give heat vents tours or the like. Might be worth researching that. I'm sure prices and capabitlys of IR sensors are better then in the 80s.

Like Matt said, Battery power will be key here. You may need to devolp some kind of 'charging' station that the 'bot can find it's way to when the batterys are low.

-Andy A.