If you want to start learning robotics using the flexible Robot Operating System (ROS) framework, at a simple search you have a wide range of robots including humanoid robots (example: Romeo by Aldebaran Robotics), wheeled robots with arm attached (example: Little Helper by Aalborg University), Lego Mindstorms NXT, and more. Some of these examples are cheap enough to be used by some hobbyists (LEGO, Merlin MiabotPRO kits, etc.) while others are very expensive such as Romeo that comes at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.
Luckily, there is a new robot kit in the club. Called simple UP1, it is a simple robot on wheels with an arm attached to it. The mobile platform runs ROS to get started doing serious development work on robots.
On the hardware side, you don’t have too many changes to make. It comes with a compact platform and a single arm with five degrees of freedom and a two-finger gripper.
On the software side, you can do more. You can do a lot of wonderful and interesting things using the Intel Edison board. This board is the one selected to control the robot and not the Raspberry Pi 2, for example. The designers come with a good reason to choose Edison instead the Pi board. The Edison comes with an x86 architecture, which in the eyes of the designers is a standard in robotics.
If you make a pre-order of the platform, you can have it for around $799. At this price, you will have a UP1 able to move at 1.5 miles per hour. You can play with the robot for about 20 minutes before to recharge the 2200 mAH battery. The platform is equipped with two video cameras for stereo imaging and four infrared sensors to avoid obstacles.
via makezine