CarbonMeta Technologies Inc (COWI)

[SPIN]

CoroWare's CoroBot encourages DIY robotic deployment

Posted May 16th 2007 3:11AM by Darren Murph

Filed under: Robots



Homegrown robotics have been sneaking around the scene for quite some time, and while we've seen instances of DIY kits coming in at (somewhat) reasonable prices, CoroWare is apparently hoping to nab a bit more of that untapped market. Hailed as an "affordable and flexible mobile robot for researchers, hobbyists, and developers in the industrial and service robot segments," the CoroBot indeed packs quite a punch. Judging by the 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 20GB hard drive, front and rear IR sensors, 640 x 480 resolution camera, and eight digital inputs / outputs that this thing sports, we don't envision it shipping out to many newbies regardless of the marketing. Furthermore, the device is compatible with Microsoft Robotics Studio, sports an option for a robotic arm capable of four degrees of freedom, and even boasts five pounds of base payload capacity. Unfortunately, for those of you still hoping to snap one up on the cheap, chances are you'll be sorely disappointed by CoroWare's definition of inexpensive, as the June-bound bots start at $2,499 and head north to $3,499 when tricked out.


Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

pauly @ May 16th 2007 7:00AM

Robots are not cheap. The cool skateboarding bot Plen goes for about $2,200.

http://www.robotliving.com


Yan @ May 16th 2007 9:00AM

A couple of friends and I saw their booth at the Robobusiness expo yesterday. Along with a couple other booths, they were right next to the Microsoft booth because they were a "Microsoft partner." It seemed like a very lame attempt by MS to appear like they were being accepted by the general robotics community. Anyway, the girl at the booth explained that the Corobot was linux compatible but didn't have any details as to whether or not the drivers were actually ported. Also, the 1.2 Ghz CPU is a VIA-based processor.

The booth to the right (I wish I remembered the vendor's name) of the Coroware's had a bunch of very small and relatively inexpensive laser range finders for about $3000. I think mounting one of them on top of a Coroware bot could make for a pretty good kit solution.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/16/corowares-corobot-encourages-diy-robotic-deployment/