Sounds like a great father-son project.

I would love to have something like that to inspect the crawlspace under my
house with, to check for leaks and puddles. The genius that installed the
hvac ducts 20+ years before I arrived ran a main duct directly across the
crawlspace entrance, covering about the top 12 inches of a 22-24 inch high
opening, so getting in and out is very annoying (especially since I'm not as
thin as I was a few decades ago when I was a pre-teen :-)). The floor is
gravel that is fairly smooth, covered with a couple of layers of
polyethylene as a vapor barrier, so I don't think tracks would be required
but the wheels would need to be several inches in diameter and the overall
height less than 12" for easy entrance. Would also need headlights, and a
flat shelf for cargo would be nice so you could use it to bring someone that
wrench or screwdriver or sump pump they forgot to take under with them. You
could even add a cargo trailer for those big loads or XL battery packs if
you need to explore all night before returning to base for a charge. Just a
suggestion for another market if you try to sell these. Heck, I'd pay as
much as $19.95 for one, maybe even a bit more :-).

Regards,
Carl Ijames carl.ijames aat deletethis verizon dott net

"Ignoramus18077" wrote in message
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The robot that I made with my son, that works like a tracked skid
steer, turned out to be really good. I have no idea how we will end up
at the state level olympiad, but it is a good workable robot, like a
real skid steer, a machine for getting work done.

http://www.machinerymoverschicago.com/blog/Robocross/

Following this, and realizing that motion and electronic components
are very cheap and good nowadays, I decided to make a surveillance
robot.

It will be mounted on a wheeled or tracked platform (off the shelf),
have a Raspberry Pi 2 linux computer, it will connect to wifi and
carry a camera. The use for it would be to be remotely controlled and
explore my warehouse, so that I can tell it to go where I want, from
home, and I will be able to see the webcam stream from the robot.

I do not think that it will be particularly difficult to implement.
This is something that I always wanted to have, like "how is that pile
of copper pipes doing in that corner" or "are there any puddles on the
ground in this corner".

I do have cameras, about 8 by now, but they cannot cover everything.

i