Some time ago I was tried to find out a hobby without computer. Unfortunately no luck and progress in this area :-)
In a meantime started to look into the educational micro-controllers like Arduino and micro-processors like Raspberry Pi.
I was very surprised how easy it is to assemble and control robot via application code. Having full control of GPIO and I2C protocol allows to design and implement an incredible things.
In addition, most of sensors with a high variety are available on AliExpress shop for a reasonable price (e.g. Triple Axis Compass Magnetometer Sensor Module only for 2 EUR).
Initially tried to do Printed Circuit Board by myself, but with a time found that it's not so simple thing to do multi-layer PCB and relied to professionals from PCBWay.com team and was implessed by price (10 EUR for 100x75mm board) and excellent quality.
The most impressive article which inspired me to this hobby was published on Udacity: "AI for Robotics: Programming a Robotic Car".
Having lack of time, still was able to implement a Proof of Concept: a self-mafe mini-robot "AkiBot" with a set of sensors controlled by microprocessor Raspberry Pi. Device-level code is written on C++, main business logic is written on Java and monitoring tool on HTML5 / WebGL.
Such technology stack allows to control and monitor robot on any device including phone.
Will try to continue to work on it as a hobby until enthusiasm is not dissolved in a daily duties ;-)
The open-source AkiBot project is hosted on GitHub.
AkiBot Key Features
Click below to download a source code!
