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ER1 Personal Robot Reviewed
Makarand writes "The Mercury News is carrying a review of
the ER1 Personal Robot
from Evolution Robotics Inc (of Pasadena, CA). The ER1 resembles neither a dog
nor any robot in sci-fi movies.
It is a 3-wheeled platform (resembling an industrial table) holding a laptop (running Windows)
for its brains and a Web camera for its eye.
The ER1 sells at $600 (laptop not included). For an extra $100 you get a completely assembled ER1.
Evolution plans to sell expansions like grippers and infrared sensors in the future. If your laptop
is Wi-Fi capable you can drive the robot around inside your home or control it using the Internet from anywhere."
Drop the laptop, and add on a six pack of beer on the platform instead, and then you really have something useful!
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
(running Windows) for its brains and a Web camera for its eye
Stupidity and Voyeurism rolled into one!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Sigh.. VB and Windows makes for extremely rapid and cheap development, not to mention 99% of consumers can actually use the product.
Don't OSS trolls know how to evaluate simple cost/benefit ratios any more?
-1:Not Anti-MS
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Lets add armor and weapons to these things and we got autonomous robot wars! Personally, I've always wished that those robot-battle type shows on tv were autonomous instead of remote controlled. Now THAT would be a challenge.
I have heard of sumo challenges where robots try to push each other out of a circle. Anyone know any good info on those?
But then again... Maybe I wouldn't be so quick to put my laptop in something about to face a 200 pound robot with a diamond tipped blade.
I have heard about the Evolution Robotics machines is: "It turns your laptop into a PDA that can't go upstairs."
Tiger has the kit version here.
Yes, you do. Computer vision is extremely expensive computationally. It is absolutley necessary to have the laptop if you want to do anything usefull.
Also if you want to do programming on your own, haveing a laptop makes it so that you dont have to do any porting of code if you are already developing on windows x86. I imagine though that most of the people willing to shell out the cash for one of these things are probably running *nix somewhere and would have appreciated a *nix version of their software. And it wouldnt have been much to ask.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I didn't want a robot doggy last year, and I have no use for the ER1 this year. People, all I'm asking for is a frickin' robot that can kill people. How am I supposed to dominate the neighborhood with a miniscule hopped-up "industrial table" on wheels? Heck, that wouldn't even scare the kids next door.
"Run, Timmy run! I think that small mobile platform with the laptop on it is heading our way!"
"Windows for brains" sounds like a good insult to hurl at a robot.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The embedded system of today is a shrunken version of the desktop system of 3 years ago. Why limit developers to an embedded OS and tool set when the platform has the capability to run things developed with RAD tools? The engineering attitude of "because it's better that way" doesn't work if you can't back it up with $$$.
Besides, this application doen't even call for what we typically think of as an embedded system. It runs off a laptop.
That said, I would really like to see this thing with Linux or BSD on a small form factory board like FlexATX as part of the robot itself. Why should I have to get a laptop when a $300 embedded computer would work.
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Until I can mount some sort of energy weapon on its head and have it rampage about shouting "Exterminate! Exterminate!", I'm not interested.
-- Davros