[rphln]

Building and (most importantly) programming one of those was a pipe dream back when I used to browse Let's Make Robots a bunch of years ago.

Sadly nowadays I just can't get into these projects that'd need me to spend money and would just sit on a drawer until the ends of the time after completed.

[TaylorAlexander]

Somehow my whole life I have been able to commit most of my spare time to projects like this (I even built two hexapods like this in high school, over 20 years ago). I do hear what you say often from other people. All I can say is that finding a way to get yourself to do it can be very rewarding. I have so many projects I am proud of, and learning to make new things has helped me jump career paths multiple times - I now have my dream job.

Find some way to do it! Its super fun.

[Arcanum-XIII]

I got rebuked about my hobby using this logic quite a lot. I learned a lot of skills though: drawing and sculpting, programming, playing music, some electronics, rc building, 3D printing, welding… nearly all of those are useful in my professional career: app dev, logo design, web site dev, project management, construction project (structural welding), currently building an automated vehicle for inspection on the side… And even some of my oddest hobbies lead me to works because I meet interesting people while practicing them.

And it was fun to develop those skill. I can even share the remains (like those big RC cars) with my children. So now… I do whatever is fun.

Even a big spider robot. It got me working on understanding trigonometry for now… and handling a lot of servo.

[jonathankoren]

Ultimately they're toys. Personally, I find making the projects more interesting than actually having them. In fact, there's plenty of times I started to dread finishing the project, because then I'd have to figure out what to do with it when I was done.

[r2_pilot]

I have that exact problem right now. I've got a bespoke 16 pound robot chassis with Jetson Orin nano and a Teensy, and there's all kinds of sensors, and it's connected to the motor controller with wheels, a DepthAI camera that can identify individuals, and at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of loosely coupled components lol at least I'm almost done with the main integrations and can focus on the way the subcomponents interact.

[taneq]

Oh no, soon you’ll have to actually make it so something fun or useful, which is a day job for a team of engineers and even then they usually make a hash of it.

I have a disassembled BigTrack, an esp23-cam board, and a bunch of motor controllers in a box. I’m planning to make it follow lines and do things when you show it QR flash cards. Same kinda thing but it takes up less room. :D

[r2_pilot]

I originally started this shortly after(before?) Google showed their multimodal Palm model or whatever; while I have some experience with ROS2 and will be doing most of the fun (it is for fun-- as it stands I've learned a lot about how to respect this level of equipment) I am planning to let AI test drive it at some point.

[taneq]

Oh, please don't take my comment as questioning your actual ability to do real world useful stuff with it! :) I just meant there's a definite inflection point where it goes from "whee I'm having fun building a robot" to "oh my god did this just become my day job" and from personal experience it's really easy to lose steam at this point. :P

What are your plans for this beefy rover?

[r2_pilot]

It's more of a mast-bot than a rover! [edit: I did hit the point where it got to be more work than enjoyment; that's when I upgraded the Jetson Nano to the Orin line and it became fun to work on again ] Think a 2wheel rectangle (those motors were from a defunct telepresence bot whose proprietary batteries failed and too expensive to replace; this kickstarted the whole project), with 2x 1 meter 2020 aluminum on the front/rear midpoints of the rectangle. I just wanted a general purpose platform, but then my work did a creative staff residency in which my proposal to make this bot play my trumpet was accepted; this has caused a lot of design changes (while enhancing the original platform where feasible). I've gotten the basics(proof of concept, all individual pieces tested) of that completed and now it's just a matter of integration, again and again amen lol. Technically I can drop that trumpet playing module as I've spent my time budget allotted for that particular day job crossover, but as far as it's come and with as "little" work to go, I'm probably gonna finish it up in the next weekend or two. Then back to the AI stuff. It'd be cool to do a sock sorter (bane of my existence right there), but I'd also like to get it to do other light household chores. In addition, I'm using it to test the Jetson Orin product line for offline AI suitability. {if you've made it this far-an original goal from before this particular bot is to have it identify when people are standing in a circle and provide party favors, while maintaining a circularly linked list if the circle dispersed, without going into more details =] }

[niemandhier]

If it has the needed actuators: Teach it to sort and match socks, that's boring and somehow needs to be done all the time. My life would be better if I had a sock sorting robot.

[jacquesm]

This goes for pretty much all of my projects except tools. Those get used all the time. But most of the things that I built out of a 'wonder if' feeling end up being super useful in terms of learning and skills development but usually not so much in real utility. With some exceptions. It's also why I've more or less decided that my future projects should produce something small enough to keep around without taking up half an acre of space.

[r2_pilot]

I have a hexapod design I was making with rds 3115 motors. I bought them before I did the rest of the math. For a while(since before 2020) they definitely sat underutilized. Since clawing back free time, I've repurposed them finally.

[tamimio]

I agree, I have many of similar mini-robots (like the AgileX limo [1]) and they are not used all the time, and I think that’s ok, not all the stuff you have used all the time either, including your phone apps, but I try to keep them as useful and reusable as possible, instead of just a “toy”.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agilexrobotics/limo-mul...

[zingelshuher]

You can add Raspberry Pi Zero 2 and camera. That's enough hardware for PHd++. In other words for a few hundred $$ you can get more hardware than you can handle. I wish I had something of it when I was a kid. If you are interested in robotics, vision, AI today is the best time in mankind history. Tomorrow will be better, and nobody knows what after that.