A Fully Programmable Mobile Robot

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Tuesday January 9, 2007 @10:21AM from the aye,-robot dept.

paxmaniac writes "iRobot has announced Create: a new fully programmable mobile robot based on the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. People have been hacking the Roomba since the day it came out. Well, hacking just got a whole lot easier. A command module for the Create provides a programmable 8-bit Atmel micro controller, four DB-9 ports for your own sensors, and a number of sample programs that can be compiled and uploaded to the command module via USB. Botmag has more details and some cool applications. This looks like the perfect robotics platform for hobbyists, schools, and universities alike."

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Perfect platform? Really? by Abcd1234 · 2007-01-09 10:34 · Score: 4, Informative

I always thought that Lego Mindstorms was the "the perfect robotics platform for hobbyists, schools, and universities alike", especially after the release of their NXT kit.

Hell, if you look here, you can see that they've:

* Released the source to the firmware, so people can write code right down to the metal.
* Provided *hardware* schematics, so people can hack their own gear.
* Fully opened the specs to the programming environment, bytecode, etc, on the shipped firmware.
* Opened up the Bluetooth protocol used by the NXT firmware.

Additionally, they've opened the doors to third party accessories.

Seriously, what can a hacked Roomba offer that's better than all that?