Shopping for Robots

After I posed my question on the Raspberry Pi forum, asking for advice and guidance on my very first robot, I received buckets of help from some very friendly, very experienced hobbyists.

For my Robotics Project thread, this is the link: Robotics Project RPi Forum

In conclusion, I decided that these two products would be a good choice for a beginner:

This is called the Magician Chassis, which I found on SparkFun. It costs around $15/£9.80, which is fantastic if my soldering doesn't go to plan.

The description:

"It features two gearmotors with 65mm wheels and a rear caster. The chassis plates are cut from acrylic with a wide variety of mounting holes for sensors, controllers, power, etc. Simply bolt the two pre-cut platforms together, attach the motors and caster and add your favorite robotics controller. This kit includes all of the parts needed to assemble the chassis as well as a 4xAA battery holder with barrel jack termination."

The second product is the RaspiRobot Board. Costing $30/£20 is also a handy, not-overly-expensive purchase.

The description:

The Raspberry Pi packs plenty of processing power in a small and inexpensive package and that makes it perfect for robot brains! The only problem? The Raspberry Pi may have plenty of low-level hardware peripherals but motor controllers aren't one of them. That's why the RaspiRobot project got started. The RaspiRobot board is an expansion board for the Pi that turns it into a robot controller.

This is not an essential, but my forum buddies suggested this match was a great start for a novice robot builder.

Both of these kits come in parts, so I'll get to learn how to put everything together, and get a bit of soldering done, which is yet another skill I feel I should have mastered but have never tried! I know my EPQ supervisor has soldering equipment, as does my granddad, so fingers crossed I won't need to buy that.

I would like to point out that these two products will probably be the 'skeleton', if you like, of my robot. In an ideal world, I'd love to connect a Raspberry Pi Camera Board or even a PS3 Eye as a camera function, and various sensors and whatnot. But always keeping in mind that my EPQ has a deadline, I will have to wait and see what I can complete!

Sites used: https://www.sparkfun.com/, http://www.raspberrypi.org/ (specifically the thread above)