re: Behind the Scenes: Motion Tracking Robot Controller at Maker Faire 2011

jodonnell — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:13:30 GMT

In the future I could see us having some sort of headet that links back to the kinect camera on the robot. With this of course you would really feel transported into the robots world. Maybe as you turn your head Eddie will power each wheel to turn with you. Perhaps emergency services could use this type of setup when exploring a building damaged in an earthquake. Today that type of robot can cost many thousands of dollars but Kinect technology if applicable can drastically reduce that cost. With a second Kinect camera monitoring your movements it becomes far easier to control devices as human gestures can communicate far more than any joystick could hope to communicate. The Maker Faire demo really showed the power of gestures for robotic control although of course you still need the robot to slam on the breaks in case your child thinks wow wouln't it be fun to see how fast Eddie can go down the stairs... :-)

I really enjoyed seeing this demonstration at Maker Faire New York and seeing the excitement this and the robotic photographer generated. Eddie+Kinect is a powerful combination.

So now the community is getting the hang of what Eddie is all about I wonder what ideas they will dream up for the robot in your home competition