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I have been researching hobby robotics platforms for Arduino and Processing, for my robomancy book, and here are two that look promising although they both have some drawbacks. If you have any suggestions, please contact me or leave a message in the comments section below.
The Finch
The Finch was recently developed by Carnegie Mellon University, for computer science education. While it does not use Arduino, it does use a related AVR chip, and it can be programmed with Processing. The Finch has some great hardware features including obstacle and light sensors, a temperature sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, buzzer, and RGB LED in the nose. The body design is theriomorphic and charmingly ambiguous (bird-fish?), and may appeal to those who do not like their robots “clunky” looking.
The Finch is priced right at $99. Its biggest drawback is that it can only run when tethered by a USB cable to a computer. It has no internal power supply, so even if I communicate with it over wireless USB, I would need to find a way to power the robot. Also, the Finch’s design does not facilitate hacking/extending it, although that is not a huge deal given the number of features it has standard.
Farrusco
“Your First Robot” was developed by Guibot (Guilherme Martins) in Portugal, creator of the Motoruino, which runs Farrusco. I love the way this little guy’s IR sensor pivots back and forth like it is looking around (in a way, it is). Farrusco has bump sensors in addition to the IR, and Guibot promises future add-ons including a line follower, speakers and light sensors, and RGB LED. There does not appear to be much prototyping space on Farrusco’s body, but the Motoruino accepts Arduino shields, and this video shows it being controlled by an Android app or Kinect communicating over XBee radios.
Farrusco costs 139 € assembled and tested, or 79 € as a DIY kit. Considering that I would need to add some components to do all of the things I would like to for the book, it may not be cost effective for this project.