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Re:A Robot for Timo – cheap telepresence for remote teams by cjbprime on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @11:32AM (#7429327)
Hi HN -- I'm the blog post author and one of the people who built this, am happy to answer any questions about the hardware/software behind it!
Re:A Robot for Timo – cheap telepresence for remote teams by akosednar on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @12:08PM (#7429624)
Any plans on making one that can move around on wheels?
Re:A Robot for Timo – cheap telepresence for remote teams by cjbprime on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @12:14PM (#7429669)
Haven't thought about it much -- my first thought would be that the solution in the blog post could be the right one for a small office where movement of the base isn't necessary, and for one on wheels you should just go buy from Double Robotics. Their product looks really nice.

If I had to build one that moves around, I'd start with investigating the Roomba API, with an aim to mount the iPad on a Roomba and expose remote control of the Roomba to the chatter. You wouldn't get as high off the ground as a Double robot without making the mount unstable, though!

Re:A Robot for Timo – cheap telepresence for remote teams by Qworg on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @12:47PM (#7429943)
Any reason you went with the Bescor over just a servo motor?
Re:A Robot for Timo – cheap telepresence for remote teams by cjbprime on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @01:02PM (#7430106)
Probably just inexperience! Do you have any particular parts in mind?
Re:A Robot for Timo – cheap telepresence for remote teams by Qworg on Thursday March 20, 2014 @11:46PM (#7440538)
You could have rigged up something like this: https://www.servocity.com/html/s3102_micro_mg.html#.Uyu11fna... to the PWM output of your Arduino.

This would have moved the iPad around, the same way as the pan tilt head.