African Robotics Network Challenge Spurs Rash of $10 Robots

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 30, 2012 @05:57AM from the isn't-rash-a-good-plural-for-robot? dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this story from Wired: "When the African Robotics Network announced their $10 robot design challenge this summer, co-founder Ken Goldberg was careful not to share too many expectations, lest he influence contestants' designs. But he never imagined one of the winning entries would prominently feature a pair of Spanish lollipops. The challenge, hosted by AFRON co-founders Goldberg and Ayorkor Korsah, emphasized inexpensive designs to help bring robotics education to African classrooms." Winners include "the lollipop-laden Suckerbot and traditional (roaming) category first prize winner Kilobot, a Harvard-spawned three-legged, vibrating, swarming robot."

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Great Recycling by epSos-de · 2012-09-30 06:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Most of the robots appear to be build from up-cycled trash that gets dumped in Africa. Imagine the potential, if they had real access to cheap processing units and cheap sensors. Imagine, if they could get an Arduino board for 3 dollars from China.

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