[Andy A.]

Sparks-

I and a fellow team mate (JamesCH i think is his name around here) have been working on a number of 'personal' robots for about the past year. The whole thing started as a theses project of his, revolving around the idea of using off the shelf parts to make a small remote controlled, semiintelligent vehicle that could preform a variety of tasks by being very modular. We ended up adapting an old clodbuster R/C car and using outdated IFI equipment from our team. Not only did his project turn out nicely, it's given us a powerful and flexible drive base that we've since used to prototype and test ideas on for other projects. It's proven powerful enough to haul heavy loads, fast enough to out pace most R/C cars and nimble enough to move around in a crowded room. It looks pretty neat to. It's our F-150 meets mars rover - It'll take anything anywhere and has the brains to use it when it gets there.

My suggestion is to first focus in on your drive base. Get it running, and drive it into the ground and see what breaks. Then fix it. Rinse wash and repeat. Getting a reliable and powerful drive train is as important for any robotics project as it is in FIRST. Once you have a bulletproof base, you can then focus on putting all sorts of stuff on top. We've had good luck using wireless cameras. They are simple to use, cheap and are worth tons of 'ooooohhs and ahhhhs' when you start driving it down the hallway of your school, and no one can see who's controlling it.

Just remember that you have the real privilege of using IFI equipment. There isn't really anything better out there for the money. It's powerful, simple, and extremely forgiving. It takes care of all the really hard stuff (making a arm is one thing, making the computer power to control it is about 50 things). Take care of it all, and it'll go a long way for you.

-Andy A.