Hobbyist One-Ups Sandia Labs

An anonymous reader writes "A robotics hobbyist has created what he claims is the world's smallest autonomous robot. The robot is half the volume of the robots produced by Sandia National Labs in 2001, moves quite a bit faster, and was made using techniques and supplies accessible to anyone." While Sandia Labs has had some time to improve on their original designs, it's still pretty cool to see what one can do at home as well.

Comments

Why not

[Chris_Stankowitz]

Why not place it in a box? I understand he doesn't have the sensor working to stop it from going off the table, why would he not then place it in a box as it looks like the device recognizes an obstacle and changes courses.

Re:Why not

[26199]

Indeed. And it seems somewhat cruel to create something only to immediately cage it!

Much better to let it run free, and make its own mistakes.

too friggin cool

[bl8n8r]

Think about it... a bright person allowed to:
- concentrate on a project all day long
- without PHB shaking deadlines in front of him
- without being burned out on meetings all day
- without the distraction of phone calls, personalities or politics

imagine what *you* could get done. I'm drawing a parallel to the busy workplace - not in any way do I mean to detract from this guys accomplishment. By all means, he's done something remarkable.