Well, besides Lego Mindstorms, Fisher Technix, and Radio Shack's VEX
robotics modular systems there's now
a new Modular Robotic kit called ROBOTIS.
There's several ways you can buy ROBOTIS parts, either a-la-carte or in
kit form. For example, the Bioloid
ROBOTIS kit runs about $1500 and gives you all the parts you need to
build and assemble yourself a little humanoid, or a dog, or dinosaur, or
a spider or various other robot
configurations. In the Bioloid kit you get
an Atmel mcu, 19 Serially controlled servo's, a Sensor module, a 9.6V
Rechargeable battery pack, C programming or Motion programming, a
switching Power Supply, Serial Cable (9pin D-type), an assortment of
over 100 frames, wheels & tires, and spacers, bushings, nuts & bolts.
The ROBOTIS system is not cheap,
but it sure is cool!
Seems like a good idea to make a kit that is easy to take to bits and
can be made into other things, the previous Kondo robots are cool but
the parts only make one thing.
I'd like to see something similar but larger scale, so you could make a
RoboSapien2 sized robot, or bigger... like a giant meccano/erector
set... even if it were only mechanical parts and motors so you could add
any microcontroller/a PC.
This is a realy nice robot kit. A Super-Deluxe Erector/Lego style Robot
building kit. Although it's still rather expensive for most kids (even
big kids). I'm sure there will be others that follow this strategy to
offer competing robot kits and at competitive pricing. The software is
the key component. If the motion control software wwas available as
freeware, this could spur an enormous interest in legged robotics, not
just bipedal bots.
=Dan