cdHex

I have only completed the first and easiest phase of my Hexapod - the build out from the PhantomX kit and my AX-12s from the Bioloid kit.  The cdHex will be the prototype/experiment for future enhanced Quad to enter into the Mech Warefare. I would like to thank Trossen Robotics (www.trossenrobotics.com) for all the assistance - thanks Matt and Andrew.  Also Michael Ferguson / Vanadium Labs (www.vanadiumlabs.com) for the awesome Arbotix controller and help along the way.

Next up is to add in some brains.  I have the new BeagleBone from Beagleboard - that I am looking to connect up a webcam and work with OpenCV.  I have been getting into more Python coding lately, so I may try to build my code around the Python bindings for OpenCV.  I will be adding some sensors soon, which I will incorporate into the Arbotix and update the Arduino sketches - some basic things to stop the bot from walking into stuff (override the commander controller routines, if stationary, I will likely have him back away if someone comes at him from the front.  Not sure exactly how I will integrate the BeagleBone - I would really like to get it working with the Arbotix to focus on the more complex aspects of computer vision, etc.

My follow-up to work done on this project will be looking at building a more powerful (an unfortunately expensive) Quad for Mech Warefare.  I am looking at MX-28s, and most likely following somewhat the Darwin-OP architecture with Fit-PC and CM700 (730 if you can eventually buy it seperately).