House Mouse

Have you seen the Wow Wee Rovio?  When I first saw it I thought 'Now that is cool.", but the more I learned about it the less impressed I became about it. Rovio Epic Fail

Then one day I saw this the Netduino and the idea for the House Mouse was hatched.
I mean how hard can it be to build an autonomous robot that can:

1. Learn to navigate around your house
1. Climb stairs
2. Avoid obstacles
3. Not fall down the stairs or off a cliff
2. Recharge itself
3. Provide tele-presence
4. Let you know via Tweet or SMS when the environment gets:
1. Too wet
2. Too hot or too cold
5. Be switched between autonomous and ROV modes
6. Cost less than $250 to build

 So here we go.
To start with I got a Netduino.  The community is fairly active and lot's of folks have build basic robots with it.  But building a robot takes more than just a CPU so I started looking around for other parts and found Pololu Robotics and Electronics. To say that these guys have everything that you need to build a robot is an understatement.

So here is where it started:

• Low-Voltage Dual Serial Motor Controller + Tamiya Double Gearbox Combo
• Tamiya 70145 Narrow Tire Set (2 tires)
• Pololu Robot Chassis RRC01A Transparent Gray

Next post will be about putting it together and shopping for sensors.