I have gotten my hands dirty with robotics at this point, so I have signed up for a robot building class this spring. My problem is I have a really hard time figuring out what I should build. So I figured I would see what people on the forum would think of.
Requirements
Has to have 4 kinds of sensors. one of which has to be a special sensor ( gyro, accelerometer, camera, voice recognition.......). The other sensors would be like sharp ir, sonar, bump sensors, photoresistors ..... Other than the sensor requirement I can build just about whatever I want.
Some of the materials I have on hand
Mechanical
3x pittman 9436 gearmotors with 500cpr encoders ~100 in oz ~5 in long
2x small panetary gearmotors have backshaft for encoders ~30 in oz ~3in long
various stepper motors all 200 step/rev (I use them for scanning sensors)
sabertooth 2x10 motor driver
a few l298 motor drivers
Electronics
5x arduinos(atmega168) I made a few of my own.
1x wiring board (atmega128)
1x bluesmirf rpsma ~400 ft range
1x long range sharp ir
2x short range irs
2x ping ultrasonic rangefinders
bump sensors
photoresistors
Skills
I can solder just about anything at this point.
I am a mechanical engineer so I'm pretty good at designing and manufacturing my own parts
I am a pretty decent programmer, but I definitely am not an expert. (c,c++,C#)
Additional info
I have been thinking of using voice recognition as my special sensor, because It feels like it would not be to hard. I plan on using c# on my computer to understand the speech. Then I will send a byte of data to my robot (bluetooth) to signify what was said. I also am looking into a text to speech synth to put in my robot. Currently I am considering a speakjet and it text to speech companion chip.
I would love to use a camera, but I am afraid I will be in over my head.
I would greatly appreciate any ideas I can get. I have a terribly hard time coming up with what I want to do on my own.
Thanks!!!