Robot Missions is helping the planet with robots. We developed a 3D printed robot to collect harmful tiny trash debris on shorelines. Our robot workshops enhance STEM education for elementary students by applying robotics to the environment.
Robot Missions is currently run by one person (Erin), and it intends to be a non-profit in the future. We’re actively looking for mentors to assist us with this process, as it seems to be a steep learning curve.
https://github.com/RobotMissions/rhok
https://github.com/RobotMissions/Robot-Firmware
The Impact
During our Mission Pilot, we embarked on 11 Field Tests and collected 2.75kg of debris with the prototype robot, engaged with 188 participants, and the robot travelled 995 meters. We aim to achieve a global impact by makerspaces, Fab Labs, and citizen scientists replicating the 3D printed robot.
Challenge (High-Level)
We need to let robot operators use the robot without being overwhelmed, while still being able to access advanced functionality. There needs to be a display of sensor data, and a way to remotely operate the robot. This could look like a web app “dashboard”, which will provide more capabilities than our hardware based remote control.
As a bonus / stretch goal, it would be great to be able to view a video stream from a GoPro on the page.
Challenge (Low-Level)
We are able to receive a stream of data through serial that contains information about the sensors from the robot. Given latency being an issue when remotely operating the robot, new data is received approximately every 150ms. The list of sensors is iterated through, which makes the updates rather periodic.
As for video stream, there seems to be APIs for accessing the GoPro feeds. More research is necessary.
How Random Hacks of Kindness can help
We will appreciate any help you can give this weekend! What would be amazing to get set up is a way to see the sensor data on a webpage, and a way to press buttons to have controls to the robot sent out. Styling can be secondary, as the functionality might be a little tricky to get going. Maybe if people are interested on Sunday afternoon, we can take the robot out for a mini Field Test.
