In this tutorial I will show YOU how to build your own butler robot!

Any improvements that will be made to Chives after this tutorial is published ( as well as the original tutorial) is available on my personal robotics website : eRobots.BlogSpot.com

I made my first version of my butler robot ( which I call Chives) about a year back(2007). This year I plan to improve him and heavily document the building process.

The old chives robot looked like this


It boasted voice commands, remote web control , web cam used in image processing , arm to pour a drink ( not pictured since its already taken apart for the new design), and manual drive with a joystick. Oh yeah , and a minifridge that kept drinks cool .

The new version of Chives which is in this tutorial , will be 100 times better . I'm planning for HUGE advancements, I'm talking about more sonar sensors, three microphones to track direction of sound, better robotic arm for pouring , cooler design, and anything else that you guys suggest that is feasible. All of this in addition to the old features.

Here is the basic design for the new Chives robot which will be detailed in this tutorial.

It will follow that design , and that after I have that basic design all finished I will attach my robot arm , some sensors, etc. So when its done it will resemble that CAD .

So here is the final functions of Chives:

1. Voice Commands for weather, time, and temperature

2. Pour a drink bottle into a cup

3. Manual control with a joystick

4. Cool soda cans in a mini fridge

5. Face recognition and greet people by their names

6. Follow a person wearing a certain color shirt

7. Avoid obstacles

8. Automatically dock to a charger

9. Wireless control over the internet

My intention is to enter Chives in the instructables robot contest , but I am not sure if I have enough time since I only finish exams a week before the deadline.

Make sure to vote for me for the Society of Robots Robot Contest AND for the Instructables Robot Contest.