Here are my ideas for housing of modules for the community project:
#1 (see cube.png which is an example of a servo module) Each module is housed inside a cube with four metal plates on each side for power and the i2c bus. problems would be:
hard to keep all plates in contact
plates could be easily bridged
#2 Same as #1 but instead of plates you could use 4 bolts that would supply both a mechanical connection between the cubes and an electrical connection.
I think It would be really cool if we could build the housing for the modules in such a way so that you wouldn't need a chassis. Does any of this make sense or am I going off in the completely wrong direction? Feel free to post your ideas in this thread.
That's why we have discussed the cubes. Because it was the first idea that came on this thread. Even though I don't think is practical for any kind of robotic project, I think the cubes are cool and allow for automatic robot reshaping or lets say some crude sort of replicators. Throw a bunch of cubes and see how they will interact with the environment, how they will connect together to create a bigger, more capable robot creature, be it biped, quadruped, wheeled or just crawling thing. It is all possible, but it involves lots of research and thought. Not so easy for any noob to use and especially not for any king of projects.
So, if we are not discussing cubes, what other ideas you guys have?
Personally, I think enclosures are not necessary for most robotic projects. Some people disconsider the robots that are a fuzz ball of wires, I somewhat agree, it is nice if you tidy up the wires a bit. Now it would be cool if the modules will be thought out to have the peripherals connected to them so that the wires go out in the same directions, left-right or forward-backward so we can tie them up to get a clean look.
