The beginning of a new robotic project is always tough. Coffee breaks are mandatory. And sometimes the conversation with other makers is the useful resource for ideas and solutions.
With Windows 10 IoT Core, you can do more than just developing Internet of Things applications. You can create stunning mobile robots with incredible functionalities and interactivity.
The Windows 10 IoT platform is still closed since the makers cannot think, hack and improve the operating system by contributing to the development side. But even so, we can focus on building robots with it. And it definitely works for anyone with a Raspberry Pi 2 or Intel MinnowBoard Max.
In our introduction to Windows 10 IoT, we listed three projects for both beginners and advanced users. You’ll find that you can connect your robot to the cloud, build an autonomous robot, or to use a mouse or touch to drive the robot.
Learn more: Here you can find over 6 key reasons why Windows IoT Core matters for the Raspberry Pi 2
In order to understand how the IoT concept can help you in robotics, the robot design has to be simple and easy to use. This Rover claims to be a simple robot with infinitely expandable options. Being a project for beginners, you don’t need advanced software or hardware skills.
With a Raspberry Pi 2 and Window 10 IoT Core, this little robot is designed to run autonomously around your living room. When the robot detects an obstacle in its path, it turns until it finds a clear path to run on it.
Because the projects explored in this article are supposed to teach you something new, this tutorial show you in steps how to build an IoT robot engineered to respond at a keyboard, mouse click and touch events.
The value of a robot kit lies in its ability to be intuitive with makers and help them to learn something and build fast. This wheeled mobile robot is one of the simplest platforms to start getting into robotics. And because it’s so simple, why not focus on IoT and less on hardware complexity. Yes, you need a simple platform with communication abilities.
The brain of the platform is the well-known Raspberry Pi 2 with a Windows 10 running on it.
Argonaut: Robot incorporates Windows 10 and the cloud
Frederick Fourie of Microsoft working on his robotics project for the Hackathon on July 16,2015. (Photography by Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures)
To spark your imagination and help you get through the Internet of Things concept applied in robotics, the senior data scientist Frederick Fourie, who works at Microsoft, shows us how the IoT can help you to make real-time processing robots. As a demonstration, this robot can do things around the house.
Because the resources provided by the Raspberry Pi 2 for real-time processing power are limited, the cloud could be the option to make things works in real-time for complex projects. Being connected to the cloud, the robot is able to upload sensor readings and download updated models to take the decisions in detection and navigation.
