This TurtleBot creation brings coffee right to you (via Turtlebot)
Ever have dreams of competing in Robot Wars? Longing for a Roomba style robot to deliver your coffee? TurtleBot has a program that be right up your alley. TurtleBot is an open-source development kit for rolling robot applications and thanks to their new initiative anyone can learn robotics programming free of charge. The program features thirty online tutorial sessions that aim to teach almost anyone how to use the Robot Operating System (ROS), an open-source flexible robotics framework system aimed to simplify the creation of of complex robot behavior, to run a Turtle Bot.
The TurtleBot itself is a personal robot kit that can drive around people's homes, see in 3D by using Microsoft's Kinect add-on, allow users to create maps of their homes, and the ability to create different applications. It can also take pictures of user's homes and piece them together for 360 panoramas. A video posted on the company's website shows the bot tracking human movement and even delivering a snack to its patient owner. It costs around $1000 for a fully-built bot for those driven enough to build the robot on their own. Designed at a high-school level, the tutorials are expected to take three or four days to complete. A functional TurtleBot is also available to buy for those who want to skip the building process. It includes a Kobuki base, Microsoft Xbox Kinect, ROS compatible netbook, and factory calibrated gyro. Whether you know nothing about robotics or are somewhat of an expert, this program is sure to have something for everyone.
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