VStone’s New Hobby Robots Include Robovie-Nano, Robovie-PC
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 6 of October , 2009 at 1:02 am
Vstone is presenting the robot world (i.e. us) with a couple new hobby robots, spanning low end (or as low end as hobby robots ever get) to high end (and prohibitively expensive). The more reasonably priced bot, the Robovie-Nano, is 23 centimeters tall, with 15 joints and integrated speakers. It’s about as programmable as you’d expect from a hobby robot of this size, and supports a number of optional accessories like gripper hands. $587 for this little guy seems a little bit steep considering its capabilities, but relative to the cost of other hobby robots in the same class, it’s not too terribly bad.
Meet Robovie-Nano’s bigger brother, who happens not to be named Robovie-Giga, after the jump.
Robovie-PC takes it up a notch by sporting an entire computer in its chest. As we discussed before, there are a number of advantages to this approach besides just having a powerful onboard processor… For example, instead of needing a computer to compile code for your robot, your robot can compile its own code. And you’ve got tons more options for peripherals (hellooooo USB!). Not that you’ll necessarily need them, since the Robovie-PC (which is 15 inches tall with 20 degrees of freedom) also includes a 1.3 megapixel webcam, WiFi, and a couple gyros.
I’m not exactly sure what kind of programming environment we can expect (in terms of firmware, hardware controllability, and integration), and the ease of use and flexibility of the software/firmware has the potential to make or break the Robovie-PC, especially considering the pricetag, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $4500.
If you like the idea of a robot with an integrate PC, but not the cost of the Robovie-PC, don’t forget about the Roboard, which is a complete (although non-integrated) robot controlling PC for about $250.
Vids of both of these bots are available on Vstone’s YouTube channel, here.
[ Robovie-Nano (Translated) ] VIA [ Robot Snob ] and [ DVICE ]
[ Robovie-PC (Translated) ] VIA [ Plastic Pals ] and [ Robonoble (Translated) ]
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Category: Hobby
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