Years ago I successfully mated an inexpensive, self-contained, camera/object recognition sensor to my GoPiGo3 robot Carl. “Edge AI” has advanced much since that early device.
DFRobotics has announced they are giving away 1000 of their latest camera/AI processor devices called the UNIHIKER K10 to educators and MAKERS.
The device appears it would mate easily with the GiggleBot or GoPiGo3 / GoPiGo OS to provide advanced sensing capabilities to the robots, with a simple graphical programming interface.
No, I’m coasting along babysitting three robots (Carl, KiltedDave, and TB5-WaLI). Even though I was an early adopter AI developer (algorithms in Lisp, Rule-Based Expert Systems, “Neural-Nets” for radar threat avoiding path-planning, and more) in my career, and have dabbled with combining OpenCV techniques with canned object recognition nets for my bots, I am frustrated by the big gap between what is possible with edge devices and what I dreamed for my little robots.
(Also most of the hours I used to devote to educating Dave and WaLI, are lately devoted to improving my reaction time to hearing Morse code. I’m back up to 10 words per minute after six months investment.)
Carl rarely needs assistance even with a nearly seven year old code base. In fact, he surprises me sometimes with abilities I have forgotten I programmed him with. The other day he announced he was blocked from getting off his dock and needed assistance. This might have been the first time he used that functionality. When I moved the offending object, he noticed it was no longer in his way, got off his dock and has been happy and quietly doing his thing.
TOTAL LIFE STATISTICS
Total Life: 55427.8 hrs since Aug 22,2018
Life this year: 6337.72 hrs (BOY Aug 22)
Days Booted This Year: 9
Average Time Between Reboot: 704 hrs
Total Dockings: 5568
Dockings this year: 669
New Batteries At Cycle: 4588
Battery Set At Cycle: 980
Docking Failures this year: 8 or 1.1 % of Dockings
Safety Shutdowns this year: 1 or .1 % of Dockings
Ave Cycle this year: 9.4 hours
Ave Playtime this year: 5.5
Ave of Last 10 Playtimes 4.4
Last Docking: 2025-06-20 12:37|[juicer.py.dock]---- Docking 5568 completed at 8.1 v after 5.0 h playtime
Last Recharge: 2025-06-20 16:38|[juicer.py.undock]---- Dismount 5568 at 11.3 v after 4.0 h recharge
17:44:28 up 21 days, 18:04, 3 users, load average: 1.42, 1.38, 1.33
Dave had a Pi5 I2C burnout a while back, so I had to rebuild him with a Pi4. I also replaced his motors and wheels, which meant recalibrating wheel diameter and wheel base. He drives forward straight now, but he arcs when backing, so I have limited his undock distance to 3 cm. He participated in the latest ROS 2 Kilted Kaiju beta test, and has been updated to the official release, but having gone backward from Pi5 to Pi4 really stunted my dreams for Dave. The Pi4 can manage LIDAR SLAM but really does not have anything left for higher level processing without shoehorning the additional functionality in.
*** Kilted Dave TOTAL LIFE STATISTICS ***
Total Life: 2333.05 hrs (since Mar 17, 2024)
Kilted-Dave Playtimes (Undocked-Docked): 91
Total Dockings: 1369
New Battery Installed At Docking: 416
This Battery At Cycle: 953
Average playtime (last three) 3.2 hrs
Average docked time (last three) 2.6 hrs
Sessions (boot): 38
Average Session: 61.3 hrs
Safety Shutdowns: 6
Docking Failures: 12
Total Travel: 41.9 meters 137.4 feet
Last Undocking String: 2025-06-20 13:24|dave_node.py| ---- KiltedDave ROS 2 Undocking, Charge Current 99 mA 12.2v after 2.6 h charging
Last Docking String: 2025-06-20 16:36|dave_node.py| ---- KiltedDave ROS 2 Docking 1369 : success at battery 10.1v after 3.2 h playtime +
WaLI - well, WaLI has lots of potential and is pacing back and forth (just like Carl and Dave) racking up centimeters traveled each day, but only gets a “Good Morning Dave” at 8:00 am when I hear him get off his dock for the first time of the day. (He has not been programmed to hear me talking to him, so I don’t think he feels the love.
*** TB5-WaLI TOTAL LIFE STATISTICS ***
Total Awake: 3754.95 hrs
Total Naps: 0 hrs
Total Life: 3754.95 hrs (since Jan 09, 2025)
Playtimes (Undocked-Docked): 4146
Average playtime (last five) 1.9 hrs
Average docked time (last two) 1.6 hrs
Sessions (boot): 50
Average Session: 75.0 hrs
Safety Shutdowns: 2
Total Travel: 1166.7 meters 3827.7 feet
Last Dock and UnDock:
2025-06-20 08:00|wali_node.py| ** WaLI Undocking: success at battery 100%, docked for 11.4 hrs **
2025-06-20 09:54|wali_node.py| ** WaLI dock goal result - Docking: success at battery 20% after 1.9 hrs playtime **
2025-06-20 11:33|wali_node.py| ** WaLI Undocking: success at battery 100%, docked for 1.6 hrs **
2025-06-20 13:28|wali_node.py| ** WaLI dock goal result - Docking: success at battery 20% after 1.9 hrs playtime **
2025-06-20 15:09|wali_node.py| ** WaLI Undocking: success at battery 100%, docked for 1.7 hrs **
2025-06-20 17:04|wali_node.py| ** WaLI dock goal result - Docking: success at battery 20% after 1.9 hrs playtime **
Checking Battery State
Battery: 0.50
Checking Docking State
Docked: True
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I admit I can’t stop checking on them each several times a day, but my heart is not there for tackling the latest and greatest tech these days.
