Heathkit Reincarnates the Hero Robot

DeviceGuru writes "Heathkit, which produced and sold mobile robots aimed at hobbyists and students back in the 1980s, is about to reenter the educational robot business. Heathkit's new HE-RObot incorporates an onboard computer running Windows XP Professional on a Core 2 Duo Processor. It stands 21 inches tall, weighs 55 pounds, and has a built-in 80 GB hard drive, IR sensors, bright LED headlights, and lots of space for custom project circuitry." As robots go, it also looks very much like certain models of SGI workstation. Now I'll need to update my 1980 Christmas wishlist -- it's probably lost between pages of Popular Mechanics.

Comments

linux!

[prichardson]

I hope the drivers for all the robot parts of this are available for linux. What good is a robot if it doesn't run linux?

In all seriousness, why would they go with Windows XP? That really doesn't make sense to me. Linux works better as a headless operating system, and would allow for more tinkering.

Re:linux!

[the_brobdingnagian]

The Microsoft Robotics Studio is supposed to be really good. And why provide drivers? I hope the interface to the sensors is really simple and fully documented.

Re:linux!

[x_man]

This is a very sad imitation of the original Heathkit Hero robot. The original Hero had a programmable robotic arm. This robot looks more like the Hero Jr, the less expensive, less featured version of the Hero. I built a Hero Jr. in 1985 (worked all summer to save up the $650 I paid for it) and it was a more functional robot than what is listed here. My Hero Jr. had the IR bit but it also had a sound detector, sonar, and speech synthesis. I would expect something made twenty two years later to be a little bit better than Windows on Wheels. Where's the arm? Where' the AI? Where's the ability to dynamically explore and map out the environment?

Very disappointing.

Alternate OS?

[deckert_za]

Not that I religiously dislike Windows, but if you can run Linux on it, it puts a whole new spin on being able to remotely ssh to your robot and issue the "kill" command ;-)

--deckert

Re:Alternate OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does have Linux, if you go to the White Box Robotics website, they have a version with Ubuntu. That's the "Player" software on their site. Since they're running mini-ITX motherboards, Linux should run OK. Not cheap, the MS version is ~ $8K, with the Linux version at ~$6.8K.
For my money, I'd spend $350 and get the Pleo, it does run Linux on an ARM CPU. Would be more fun to work with too! http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9421520726.html

Re:Alternate OS?

[noidentity]

Not that I religiously dislike Windows, but if you can run Linux on it, it puts a whole new spin on being able to remotely ssh to your robot and issue the "kill" command

Not to fear, Windows provides an automatic version of this feature where you don't even need to log in to have processes randomly killed.

Re:Alternate OS?

[Enigma2175]

Not cheap, the MS version is ~ $8K, with the Linux version at ~$6.8K. WOW, I had no idea they were so expensive. They really don't seem to have much hardware to account for the massive cost. This robot has similar capabilities (same sensors, batteries, etc.) and software (runs Linux/Player) and has a 4 axis manipulator arm that the WBR bots lack at probably 1/10th of the price.

Heathkit in name only

[Anonymous Coward]

The awesome thing about Heathkits was that it was just some components you soldered together. You could understand each piece of it, and then see how they get put together into something that actually worked. (I still use my Heathkit stereo receiver at home.) There was no magic black box. I've never seen a permanently broken Heathkit: if you can build it from scratch, you can fix it. Anything else electronic tends to just get thrown away, because there's no way for us mortals to know how to go about fixing it.

Now it's a PC running Windows XP. It's a blue PC on wheels. It doesn't even look like you get to assemble it. It's "Heathkit" in name only.

Re:Heathkit in name only

[cjsm]

Well, I think the cool thing about this, to some people (not necessarily me) is that its a PC in a Robot. Assuming you can also use this as a regular PC, this might have appeal as a novel gaming PC or whatever.

But like others, I'm surprised Heathkit is still around. I built a Vox Combo Organ from scratch that Heathkit offered in kit form back in the day. Wasn't very reliable, though. Some of the springs on the keys broke off after I had pounded on it for a year or two. Not Heathkit's fault, since they were just supplying the standard Vox components.

Re:Heathkit in name only

[noidentity]

Now it's a PC running Windows XP. It's a blue PC on wheels.

Oh come on, Windows doesn't crash that often!

Re:Heathkit in name only

[fotbr]

But the components all had their standard markings, and the kits provided actual schematics as well as the "this piece goes on the board at location A" instructions. If you wanted to learn as you went along, you could. If you didn't want to learn, you could get by with just blindly following the instructions.

I dabble in electronics as a hobby. I enjoy amateur radio, again, as a hobby. I do not have the knowledge to sit down and design a 1.5 KW CW & SSB HF amplifier starting from a blank sheet of paper. I CAN sit down with the old Heathkit & its instructions and figure out what the parts are doing enough to bring a dead kit back to life without resorting to the brute force method of blindly replacing components until it works.

Like most things in life, what you get out of your projects and hobbies is directly related to the amount of effort you put into them. If you put no effort into it, then a heathkit kit was probably pretty useless. But if you put effort into it, you could learn a lot from them.

Obligatory Windows Put Down, with a twist...

[joetheappleguy]

So it runs XP, which with the release of Vista is now supposed to be really not that bad, but it is still running Windows and this is Slashdot, so that is bad, but it's not Vista, which is good, but I want to make a "bot net" worm joke, but with Vista the joke wouldn't be right, but it has XP which is supposed to be better, but you know the whole security thing, but, but, but....

AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!

Who knew that making smart ass comments about Windows could get so complicated?

Re:Obligatory Windows Put Down, with a twist...

[Stanislav_J]

So it runs XP, which with the release of Vista is now supposed to be really not that bad...

Kinda OT, but...did you ever stop to think that maybe the whole Vista mess was a calculated debacle to make XP look better? I mean, people used to fuss and cuss at XP all the time, and now when Vista comes stumbling along, XP suddenly seems (comparatively) wonderful. (Kinda like how Americans have become so obese, that even I with my 30-40 extra pounds feel like an anorexic model when I look at the other hogs at the buffet trough.) Maybe this whole Vista thing was a decoy to actually sell more copies of XP and make us more complacent and satisfied with it? Vista = New Coke and XP = Classic Coke? Or am I attributing too much wisdom and business savvy to the MS overlords?

55 pounds?

[Animats]

That's heavy for what's essentially a laptop with wheels.

Apparently its main sensors are just little IR ranging devices. Those things are basically non-contact bumpers. Not too impressive. It really is a rehash of 1980s technology. I don't see much use for a 55 pound dumbbot. Robotics is way beyond that point.

This thing ought to have at least two cameras, stereo vision, and SLAM software. Wouldn't add that much to the cost, and they have the needed CPU power onboard. A pair of webcam chips mounted rigidly to the same frame, so that they stay aligned within a pixel, would make stereo vision work. You can buy stereo camera pairs for robotics, but they cost too much because they're made in tiny quantities. Made by a toy manufacturer, they'd be no more expensive than two standard webcams.

Re:55 pounds?

[Animats]

Those are quite expensive in anything higher than 640x480 resolution, and their smaller model already has 1024x768.

Actually, Unibrain "consumer" (about $100) and "industrial" (about $400) FireWire cameras are the same electronics in different packaging. Their industrial camera has the voltage regulator further from the imager, so its heat doesn't add noise to the image. That's about the only difference in the electronics.

Synchronizing two FireWire cameras is straightforward, too, FireWire cameras running in isochronous mode on the same FireWire tree are all running off the same clock (the "isochronous master"). If you start them in sync, they'll stay in sync. The Linux driver doesn't support multiple cameras (did that get fixed in the 2.6 kernel FireWire re-implementation?), but I once wrote a QNX driver that did, and could run multiple cameras in sync. It doesn't take any extra hardware.

All you need is solid mechanical and optical alignment between the two cameras. Yes, you can try to correct for angular misalignment in software, but if you can get the cameras aligned so that the rows on both cameras are parallel, the stereo processing is much easier.

Looks like

[HangingChad]

Does anyone else think it looks more like a vacuum cleaner?

Heathkit has a NEW group of "core users" now

[Ellis D. Tripp]

The division of the company that once sold kits to ham operators and electronics geeks no longer exists (hasn't since the 1990s, IIRC).

The name lives on, being used by "Heathkit Educational Systems", which sells overpriced technology training equipment and materials for classroom use. With the educational market firmly in the grip of M$, the fact that this thing runs XP rather than linux should be no surprise at all.

Re:Heathkit has a NEW group of "core users" now

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Ramsey's BEST offerings can't hold a candle to the worst of the old Heathkit, particularly in terms of the quality of the assembly manuals.

There is one modern company that comes pretty close, but they are solely in the ham radio market, with a very small (but wonderful) product line.

http://www.elecraft.com/

Wither Heathkit?

[Snorpus]

Last I heard of Heath(kit), they'd been purchased by Zenith. I think the name is still used on motion-sensor fixtures, sold as "Heath-Zenith", in places like Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.
I suspect the only connection to the Heathkit we love is the name... somebody probably bought the rights to use the name.

Now, if the instructions (yellow cover mandatory) include a 200-step procedure for aligning the RF and IF stages, using the S-meter as a VTVM and the BFO as a signal source, then we know we're getting somewhere.

Provided, of course, that the robot only comes in a two-tone green color scheme.

Heathcliff Reincarnates the Hero Robot

[Sergeant Pepper]

Did anybody else read this as "Heathcliff Reincarnates the Hero Robot"? I had imagined some bastard child of Wuthering Heights and Snow Crash...

Heathcliff: "Wait a minute, Cathy. Make up your mind. This Love thing--is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" Cathy shrugs. "What's the difference?"

Or, alternatively:

Y.T.: My love for Hiro resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Juanita, I AM Hiro!

Re:reincarnation

[bhodikhan]

I live in the same town as Heathkit. At one point they were part of Zenith Data Systems. Later on they were spun off as their own company. Since then they have catered mostley to the technical education eTeaching type fare (Macromedia Director Training Curriculum). Given that they've lost all the people that made Heathkit great long ago I seriously wonder what would make them try to sell such a closed dead-end robot. While I'm always happy to see Heathkit alive and kicking this robot endeavor makes me wonder who's running the show? My guess is that they're listening to the marketing guys more than the techies that used to drive the products. It's too bad. Heathkit was really cool (about 30 years ago).

Depress yourself further...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

http://www.heathkit.com/

Re:Heathkit has lost touch with its core users

[Dachannien]

Heathkit was beloved of inveterate tinkers Maybe they're trying to appeal to invertebrate tinkers now.

Alternative

[Tablizer]

I like the approach that Evolution Robotics took: use your existing laptop as the brain and control panel of the robot. Their robots are basically Erector-Set-like stands that hold a laptop and have sensors. Pretty cool idea.

It does run Linux

[cozytom]

This robot is maybe made by Heathkit (a subsidary of Zenith, which is really LG, at least in the US for TVs and such), but the design is Whitebox. The top of the line Linux one is $1000 less than the windows version:

      http://www.robotshop.ca/home/suppliers/white-box-robotics-en/white-box-robotics-linux-914-pc-bot.html

It does seem the Heathkit is out of touch, but it is more likely some school administration that would want to buy some of these. Since the administrators don't do any real computer work, other than write Word documents, and do budgets on Excel, to them every nail needs the M$ hammer. They want to teach a software class, well, the old M$ hammer works good for them, they will stick with it. Even many teachers are afraid of anything they can't buy at WorstBuy or the Apple store.

IF these are reliable, and white box can take care of them, then confidence may grow, and people will buy the linux versions to replace the buggy M$ ones. It could happen.

Re:Alternative (pics)

[Tablizer]

Here some pics of Evolution robots:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/0402/robo07.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/washtech/images/demo2002_robot_190w.jpg

With a claw:

http://www.xeni.net/images/boingboing/robot_butler.jpg

Whitebox

[Pedrito]

This is basically a repackaged White Box 914 PC Bot which is priced at over $5000... Unless Heathkit can get the price to a reasonable range, it's probably going to be out of the price range of most hobbiests. Still, a very cool gadget. Wish I had a lot more disposable income...

RB5X robot kit

[oaklybonn]

For a vintage kit from the same era, you might want to check out:

http://www.rbrobotics.com/

The kit was about $1000 for chasis and boards. Lots of discrete components here, lots of hackability. All that its lacking is a time machine so I can actually get a chance to work on the one I bought two years ago...

Screw that

[l00sr]

Screw the HE-Robot. Call me when they release a SHE-Robot.

I, SGI

[fm6]

As robots go, it also looks very much like certain models of SGI workstation.

Actually, it only looks like one, the O2. Which was, I suspect, designed to look like a robot!

Linux won't improve a crappy design.

[Noodlenose]

While I'm a diehard Linux/*BSD fan myself, this machine wouldn't even be improved with a genuine OpenBSD install done by Theo de Raadt himself (apart from that it would probably swear really well). Look at the design: it looks like a watercooler on wheels. Where's the robotic arm?

Before committing a large amount of money to an overpriced Dell on wheels it really has to stand the 'get me a fecking bottle of beer from the fridge' test.

Re:MS already has robot support, MS Robotics Studi

[wellingj]

The .Net Robot Studio stuff is a clone of Player Project.

Andm Player has robot drivers for this platform already. Check here for more information.