Hi, I don't really know anything about this kind of thing but I'm trying to find a birthday present that my husband will love. He's always been in to modifying little devices and such to make new contraptions. For christmas a friend got him these deskpet things here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/7-13-years/e8b3/
He has one of each of them and he's been thinking of things he wants to turn them in to. One idea he's had is making some kind of autonomous robot that will navigate simple mazes. He said his only concern is finding parts that are small enough to fit inside the casing of the deskpets while still allowing him to make the deskpets function as he intends them to.
I don't know anything about Arduino but I know he's bought one of these boards before and used it to make an RC car for our son. I want to know if one of these boards would be good for this kind of project. I don't want to ask him because I don't want to tip him off on his birthday present. If not Arduino what would you recommend? Or are his suspicions correct that it may be impossible to find parts to fit this project?
Im sorry I can't be any more descriptive, I just don't know about any of this stuff. Please let me know what you think.
But there are at least two potential problems... power supply for the board and space for sensors. Something physically larger would certainly make it much easier for someone getting started.
There are four aspects to a robot: mechanics (chassis and gears), electrics (motors and batteries), electronics (micro-controller), software (behaviour). Do you have feel for which of these would be his primary interest?
He's always been more into the electronics stuff and programming. He's a computer engineer going for his masters. I don't know if that helps or not. Also, if I got one of those boards what other parts would he need to attempt his design idea? I don't want to get it for him if he's not going to have the parts and stuff he needs to try to make it!
Yes, he's hacked devices like remotes, old phones, toys, and the like before. I don't think I really know what a micro controller is but I know he's used an Arduino board before, but I don't really know which one. He used it to build his own custom RC car for our son.
You can buy him a kit. There are kits which require soldering and non-soldering kits). Just google up arduino kits or electronic kits. You said he likes to hack things, so instead of buying him a factory made toys you can buy him a kit. These kits require some assembling. a kit may take 30 minutes to a few hours.
You can find kits at http://www.solarbotics.com/robot_kits/
and many other stores. I personally love mousie the junk bot from solarbotics, but its not a desktop toy.
Good luck with the gift. Hope this helps.
Sorry for the very late reply, the forums stopped letting me log in for a few days for some reason. I wanted to thank everyone for their input, I went ahead and bought him one of these http://store.arduino.cc/ww/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=131 from the store since I figured he could likely find something to do with it anyway, even if not for his little desk pets. Thanks again for your help!