Harry Gee and the Agilic team have just launched a Kickstarter to raise funds for their TiddlyBot. It’s a very simple, very small robot powered by the Pi. It’s designed to be used for education, either in schools or at home, and comes with software to develop a web interface to control the bot.
Price-wise, it’s very competitive with the current Earlybird kit coming in at $44 (including delivery). You can get the controller board by itself (although if you’re in the EU or US, you wouldn’t want to due to an added delivery cost). You can also buy a kit complete with a Raspberry Pi Model A for $93, and with a camera module as well for $115. There’s also a school’s pack with 10 of the main kits for $390 (which gives a nice saving).
At those price points, it’s very exciting. One interesting thing is that it doesn’t seem to have a ‘third wheel’ yet in the video (below) it doesn’t seem to have any problems balancing.
Having seen the larger PiBot (which hasn’t been released as a Kickstarter yet), I’m confident in saying that the build quality is good and I reckon if you’re trying to get into robotics then this kit represents a great starting point.
The TiddlyBot is expected to ship in October and has a month to raise the $27,000 necessary for funding.
And, oh yeah, it’s shaped like a tadpole, which is kinda cool 🙂
You can view the Kickstarter here.