Take a $500 computer, throw in a $149 camera, some servos, a couple of casters, a power source and some programming - viola! You've got yourself an autonomous robot.
Some people at the University of Osnabrueck (have no idea where that is) did just that. This robot has three modified servos glued to lots of plywood. A controller run by a series of 6 volt batteries, an Apple iSight camera with the body of a Apple Mac Mini provide the power and brains. The software that runs the "brain" is Java based. It processes images from the iSight camera and decides where to go to avoid obstacles.
The batteries last almost 2 hours! The group hopes after successful testing - to sell a home kit to people interested in building their very own Mac Mini Bot to do your bidding. I soooo want one.
picture of the finalized bot after the jump
