Design Goals for Deskpet

I have decided to limit myself to 3 projects; Deskpet, Tiletoy and notebooks. I just built some notebooks, and my Tiletoy PCB is on the way (maybe more about that later), so I’d like to get back to Deskpet.

Deskpet is a project that I am working on to create a small robot to live on my desk as a pet. One of the things I have learned at work is that it is much harder to build something if you don’t know exactly what it is supposed to do. So here goes; high level design goals for Deskpet:

1. The major goal for the Deskpet is to construct a pet. It needs to live on my desk and generate an emotional attachment.
   • Sufficient output to be “interesting” – If all it has is a pair of motors, I can make it dance, but it would be much easier to generate an emotional attachment if it has other methods of expressing itself.
   • Sufficient input to be interactive – I want to be able to play with my pet, so it needs to be able to sense it’s surroundings, toys and possibly me.
2. Automatic recharge – If it is going to seem alive, I can’t keep having to put it on the charger.
3. Wireless communication and bootloading – This is going to require A LOT of firmware work on my part, so it ould be easiest if I could download new firmware without even toucing the ‘bot.
4. I will not be concerning myself with availablilty or cost of components with respect to eventually making kits available. This will be a project for me.

Well, that should be enough to keep me busy……..

Syndicated 2009-06-15 04:25:03 from robotguy.net/Blog