Instructional robotics startup CYOBot is again with a second-generation model of its eponymous programmable CYOBot — now that includes a modular design that may become a variety of robotic kinds just by swapping components linked to its “CYOBrain.”
“This new model builds on every little thing we discovered from the primary marketing campaign, with some wonderful new options we expect you will love,” CYOBot’s Anh Ho says of the second-generation design. “CYOBot v2 is modular, so you’ll be able to remodel it into completely different kinds, and it now connects with sensible gadgets and integrates with platforms like [OpenAI] ChatGPT to make it much more versatile and enjoyable.”
Constructed round an Espressif ESP32-S3 “mind,” the CYOBot features a 33-LED matrix show, a 12-LED ring, two button, speaker, twin microphones, built-in inertial measurement unit (IMU), and 16 management channels for servo motors. An “Extension Block” gives connectivity to the microcontroller’s I2C, SPI, and UART buses, in addition to 4 general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins of which two assist pulse-width modulation.
There’s an built-in 4.4Ah battery with USB Sort-C charging, together with Bluetooth 5 Low Power (BLE) connectivity — and Wi-Fi, which acts as a hotspot for installation-free programming utilizing a browser-based growth atmosphere.
The second-generation CYOBot includes a “CYOBrain” that may swap between three completely different robotic our bodies. (📹: CYOBot)
This “CYOBrain” can then play host to a variety of modular add-ons to configure it for varied use-cases, beginning with the CYOBot Crawler — a quadrupedal walker bot pushed by eight 180-degree servo motors. The CYOBot Wheeler, in the meantime, switches 4 of the servo motors for 360-degree variations linked to wheels on the finish of its 4 legs — whereas the CYOBot Recreation Console configuration has no motors in any respect, however 4 buttons and two joysticks as inputs for on-device video games.
The robotic’s modularity is not the one enchancment over the unique CYOBot: the corporate claims the transfer to the ESP32-S3 will tackle reminiscence exhaustion points with the unique, whereas the brand new design contains expanded growth capabilities, an unbiased battery degree monitor, twice as many microphones and new noise-cancelling performance, and 4 extra motor channels.
The corporate guarantees new options to return in its studying platform, on prime of the {hardware} enhancements. (📷: CYOBot)
The corporate additionally claims the gadget is open-source, making the {hardware} design obtainable below the strongly reciprocal model of the CERN Open {Hardware} License Model 2 and the software program below the GNU Common Public License 3 — although, on the time of writing, the undertaking’s GitHub repository solely had recordsdata for the CYOBot Crawler variant.
The CYOBot v2 is at the moment funding on Kickstarter, with bodily rewards beginning at $99 for a naked CYOBrain board, $129 for a pre-assembled CYOBot Console, $169 for the Crawler or Wheeler, or $209 for a package which incorporates the CYOBrain and the required components for all three kinds. All {hardware} is predicted to start out delivery in January subsequent yr.
