I’ve decided I’m going all in and building a Le Kiwi base for the arm.
The question essentially has been, how much do I want to complicate this?
And this is definitely the complicated route.
Floor cleanup seemed like the most useful task. So on one side of the spectrum, I both the robot arm to a chunk of wood and set it on the ground to do what it can do with it reach. On the other side of the spectrum, I build an experimental mobile base with three wheels all pointed in different directions, but it’s okay because they’re Omni wheels.
But if I gather training episodes on a stationary platform, that data won’t transfer especially well to a mobile platform later.
Unless the mobile platform is the base from the beginning.
So at first I was going to create a non-functioning Lekiwi base just to start collecting episodes from the visually correct platform.
But then I ordered the servos too.
And I was not about to pay $90 for omnidirectional wheels. Nor could I find a 3D-printed design I liked, so I designed my own omni wheels.
I love Blender.
The wheels match the arm..!
So now I’m learning about batteries and ROS, while becoming increasingly impressed by the Roomba.