This post is a quick update on the Geek robot build so far. A fair amount of trial and error and a bit of experimentation has consumed a lot of my time in the construction thus far. I believe this build will still take a long time because of the vast amount of tasks that still needs to be completed.

So here is a quick view of the robot so far.

The robot has a total of 14 servos that are allocated as follows:

• Two micro servos (1.3kg per cm) in the neck in a mini pan tilt plastic mounting.
• Two servos (one metal gear 20kg per cm and one 18kg per cm) in the robot waist in a pan tilt metal mounting.
• Each arm has three servos (a 18kg per cm servo in the shoulder and two 1.3kg per cm micro servos for the rest of the arm movement).
• Each leg consists of two servos (18kg per cm).

The robots’ head contains two cameras, an Arduino 2 mega pixel camera for static images and a Logitech web cam for video (I removed the web cam housing as it
was too bulky).

The robots’ feet are aluminium housings that will contain the batteries that will power the robot. This is to keep the weight at the bottom of the robot, thus helping to balance it. I am still investigating the exact battery configuration to use as I would prefer a rechargeable option.

I used a fair amount of Timiya universal metal joints during the assembly so far and these are very handy in building any robot.

The robot currently has two ultrasonic sensors and one infrared distance sensor. The ultrasonic sensors are mounted on the front of the feet for obstacle detection and the infrared distance sensor is mounted on the front of the robots’ hips and will be used to detect vertical drops.

I plan to mount another ultrasonic sensor and infrared distance sensor on the robots’ back, to allow for the robot to avoid obstacles when it moves backwards.

The robot has a laser diode attached to its one arm, which I intend to use for pointing as well as a point of reference for the webcam.

The next task I will be undertaking will be to start wiring the robot to the Arduino Mega R3 and Raspberry Pi 2 that I intend to use to control the robot. I will post more blog updates as progress on this robot advances.