Having little building experience, I ordered Robot Builder's Bonanza (2nd Edition) this week, as well as another beginner's building book.

Tenacious C: I think it would be desirable to have one microcontroller doing everything, because it might make it easier to coordinate movement between different parts of your robot. (Disclaimer: I am not an expert.)

I was planning on doing an independent research project next year (being my fourth year in computer engineering). Since there is no thesis to write in your fourth year, they offer a "Project" class, which means you get a prof to supervise it and then you do a short presentation and write up a report by the end of the semester.

Previously, I had thought of doing on project on AI robotics, but I think I'll be doing it on cryptography instead (most likely eliptic curve cryptography). I figured that I would rather work on my robot stuff on my own without having to worry about making it work within 4 months.

Got an account here on robots.net, so I'll try to keep my AI robotics diary here, and keep my Free Software-related diary on Advogato.

I won't have much else to report until May, when I have a bit more free time.

(Evening Update) The whole trust thing seems a bit weirder here than on Advogato. Someone with a single cert from a Journeyer for Journeyer level attains that level. Weird. Is the trust metric actually different on this site or is just because there are fewer people here than on Advogato?