Hexy - arduino robot controlable by Pi?

Anyone else that have fell in love with this little creature? =)
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/14/hexy-hands-on/

My Pi is in my DHL office right now and I am actually thinking of buying this little creature and make some modifications to it

What do others think of this robot?

Not something I'd go for - simply because I doubt this sort of thing can carry much more weight than just its batteries, though I've never tried any of these. Could always feed it power over a tether.

However the price for this one looks tempting, if $200 includes 20 servos...

Why do people keep waving these ideas in front of us!

Im actually would have this one as a testbed for starting programing a robot and later move the design to a sturdier design(maybe aluminum) with more powerful servos and batteries.

I still think this is a great affordable kit of hardware to have as a base

Hexbug spider is a good cheap alternative - although with a Pi and batteries I don't know if it will take the weight.

Hexy runs on 6v, so the RPi could probably run off the Hexy battery pack too (with a couple of capacitors in the circuit for protection). I can't find the original post now, but it was three hundred and something grams that Hexy could carry without it adversely effecting his mobility. Glad I'm not the only person who envisions a RPi Hexy. I'll be following this post closely. Anyone else made the plunge and ordered a Hexy?

I signed up to buy Hexy a few days ago, and my R-PI is somewhere in the East Midlands according to DHL.

In terms of sharing batteries, I suspect it is not a good idea for the R-PI to use the 6 volt battery that powers Hexy (they will be providing 2 battery packs, a 4 AA pack if you use non-rechargeable batteries that give off 1.5 volts each, and a 5 AA pack if you use rechargeable that give off 1.2 volts each to get to 6 volts). Servos require a lot of power, and it is common that you can't control the Arduino and servos off of the same 5v supply. I experienced this myself, when I put an LCD screen on my Arduino, I could no longer run the single servo I had in the circuit.

In theory, you could get a 12v battery, and have 2 outputs, one at 6v for the Hexy, and one at 5v for the R-PI. I see some that have 12/9v output along with a 5v USB port. Or just have 2 batteries, 1 for each processor.


According to this: http://arcbotics.com/products/servotor32/ the Servotor32 platform that is at the heart of Hexy can be controllable via USB, so it should controllable from the R-PI. Given all of the source code will be available, it should be mod-able.

Especially since the code is written in python.

I can't wait. How big was the second run of RPis again?

Ohh I have been totaly bogged down by work so I totaly missed that people had ansvered this post

I actually have my Pi in front of me so that part is no problem, now I just have to order the hexy or rather get the money for it

Power will not be a problem with my lab set up where it will be wire connected and later when releasing him to take over the world (MOHAHAHA! .....^_^) I will see if I can build a bigger and stronger variant (what do you say about 12*12 feet? )

Now back to work and keep dreaming

Ohh I have been totaly bogged down by work so I totaly missed that people had ansvered this post

I actually have my Pi in front of me so that part is no problem, now I just have to order the hexy or rather get the money for it

As I post this (7:40am USA east coast time), the kickstarter campaign will end in about 40 hours, and Amazon will charge the credit card the backers provided (assuming it is 100% funded, and hexy is currently at 1,129%). Once a campaign ends, you can't order it through the kickstarter methods.

With some of the tech stuff I've helped fund, it later is available as a separate retail product. A lot of times, the retail price is higher, since the maker needs to make the project return income where you pay employees or subcontract and not as a hobby project where the founder donates his time for free.

Thus, if you want hexy at the current price and reasonably soon delivery, you need to become a backer now, and provide a credit/debit card to pay for it when the campaign ends. My experience is the charging happens just after the campaign ends.

Lookin forward to trying to attach hexy to my rpi


Shipping late October or later for me though.