Unboxing my secret robot addiction - part 1

Well, not so secret really. Crowdfunding has a lot to answer for!

Unboxing a robot is such fun! (as long as the robot ships while you can still remember backing the campaign) What are the best robot crowdfunding campaigns that you’ve supported?

My love affair with robots began young, although the first things I built weren’t robots, they were model rockets. By the time I turned ten, I had graduated to soldering and building my own basic circuits, then I was introduced to Heathkit and fell in love. My father got me to build the equipment for the physics lab at the University of Newcastle in Australia, chart recorders, oscilloscopes  etc. None of that Heathkit Junior stuff. 

But having cut my teeth on ‘real’ stuff, I wasn’t interested in toy robots. I ended up studying film, television and radio technology instead, from satellite broadcasts to multitrack sound and vision mixing. I got the best of both worlds, as was able to learn everything analogue and all the newest digital technologies. 

Fast forward and I realized that we were entering the age of real robots and also crowdfunding! It’s just so tempting to support interesting robots, but I seem to have become a robot hoarder. So to keep this under control it’s time to follow the best cognitive behavioral therapies and log exactly how many impulsive robot purchases I’ve actually made. Perhaps I will be more mindful in future.

But who am I kidding! Today I unboxed the Luwo XGO raspberry pi robot dog (with arm) and it’s currently on charge, waiting to be played with. 🙂. 

2011:

Printrbot: your first 3D printer - $499

I learned so much about 3D printing from that little printer! And at the time, $499 was the cheapest 3D printer you could find anywhere, with a heated bed too. As long as you didn’t mind building it and then building your own case. Thank you to Brook Drumm and Maker Faire. Promised Feb 2012 and delivered mid 2012, perhaps even earlier!

2012:

NinjaBlocks - $411

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Not quite a robot but a good collection of internet enabled sensors and thinkers, with options to add your own actuators... so almost all you need! Promised for May 2012 and delivered May 2012 as far as I can see. Unheard of!!

Oddwerx - $499 (sadly not a successful campaign

From our friends at Ologic! Just add smartphone and you have an autonomous mobile robot complete with two custom personalities built into the Oddwerx ap and expandable by design. Out of the box Oddwerx had interchangeable tracks and wheels, bluetooth connectivity. Plus they won the Silicon Valley Robotics region of the first (and only) Global Cloud Robotics Hackathon and placed 2nd overall. 

If you want more robots, please consider supporting this newsletter. If you can’t afford it, then this post will be fully available in two weeks.