This telepresence robot will never let your Skype callers sneak up on you. [Priit] built the project, which he calls Skype Got Legs, so that his distant friends could follow him around the house during chats. But as you can hear after the break, the electric drills used to motorize the base are extremely loud.
Noise pollution aside, we like the roughness of the hack. It’s utilitarian but seems to work quite well. Commands are sent via the web using a combination of Ajax and PHP function calls. The two drills are controlled by an Arduino via a couple of automotive relays. The drills are powered by their original rechargeable battery packs. So as not to alter those batteries, [Priit] figured out a way to use synthetic wine bottle corks as a connector. They’ve been cut to size, and had tinned wires pushed through holes in them. Now, when he inserts the altered corks they press the wires against the battery contacts.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKpRiLlYS-g&w=470]
You might get the feeling you are being followed 🙂
Looks like a Dalek with its skirt off.
Daleks was exactly what I showed my firend when trying to explain what i’m buildin. Should have but some dalek sounds to mask the drills.
When you have the time you should get some cardboard and make a Dalek skirt, also from the look of it it looks like it drags a bit on the ground, have you thought of putting furniture gliders on the bottom, might reduce the sound a little.
Oh my god, that’s awful and great at the same time.
He needs to pair it with the ‘cone of silence’
Johnny Chung Lee did this a fair while ago, in an albeit cleaner package 😛 I love the idea of using the drills as motors though.
http://procrastineering.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/low-cost-video-chat-robot.html
I like how the drills are just used as-is, amusing how it avoids any hassle with removing the motors from their housing and what not.
Here is a practical application:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbypsMauqOY