Porter Robot Blog begins!

I finally got around to kicking off this blog, the purpose of which is to document the development process I'm going through to create the Porter robot. 

We don't quite know what Porter will look like yet.
In the meantime, here's a "P" for Porter!

Porter is a handy guy, meant to act as its namesake; carrying heavy items up and down stairs and all around the house on a wheeled platform.  

Currently, I am working on this Roomba 
to serve as our prototype wheeled platform.  To be replaced soon...


Porter learns his way around the house using camera vision and ultrasound sensors, and is rugged enough to carry heavy objects.  

Currently, I am using the Kinnect to tinker with camera vision.

I got the idea for Porter as a commercial project as a way to learn practically how to build a robot, including how to design and build a chassis, drive and control the robot using electric motors, and map/navigate around a house using computer vision.  I tend to be rather optimistic, so I thought this project was doable while still being pretty innovative.  

I've come a long way, but still have a long way to go, so I thought it would be a good point to start tracking all the progress I'm making.  Perhaps some of this information will be of use to a future roboteur.  Enjoy!

The current set-up