You might have heard the news via other media, but we are building a robot. For almost two years now we have been collaborating with the Complubot Educational Robotics Association from Madrid, Spain. We have gone through several iterations of prototypes, we have been 3D printing wheels, we have looked into color screens, screws, sound speakers …

(c) 2012 Complubot, Nerea revising the robots for RC-Mexico 2012

Things are coming along and we are close to the release our first robot. The experience of building this is being amazing and I am sure there will be more bots following this first one.

When we started this process, I knew a lot about digital electronics, but little about robotics. During the last two years I burnt some transistor chips, and made some motors move, I read the books, talked to the people, traveled back and forth to Complubot’s headquarters at a school in Alcala de Henares to check ideas, revise the hardware, and talk about software.

Six months ago, we -Ivan, Nerea, Eduardo and me- passed over the eagle files to Arduino’s hardware guru for him to evaluate the best way to manufacture the robot. We tested battery charging systems, DC-DC converters to improve the response from the motors,  tried better display technologies, and now we have our alpha robot running. The project we have been calling “Lottie Lemon” is about to become The Arduino Robot.

(c) 2012 Compubot, Ivan (left) and Nerea talking to some of the RCJ volunteers before opening to the public

We are presenting The Arduino Robot at the RoboCup Mexico 2012 at Complubot’s booth. Nerea, Ivan, and Eduardo are representing Arduino, showing the robots, running a workshop for the attendants to the RCJ event, demoing all the official Arduino boards, and reporting back for the rest of us.

Follow their adventures (in Spanish) at their blog, and come back to ours for more information soon.