Hello and welcome to another Burf Update! This update is all about the Sanbot Elf Robot, of which I managed to acquire 17 🙂
Not the most normal thing to do—especially on the same day your partner moves in—but I’m not exactly known for doing normal things. A few of them needed work, but I’ve got about 10 of them up and running and have written my first demo app for work.
I think this is a great intro to commercial robotics. My current thoughts are to rent out the robots for events, etc., with custom software designed to engage the public and tell them about products and services—a RaaS (Robot as a Service) model.
Drummer Robot
While picking up the Sanbot robots, I also picked up this epic custom drummer robot. It needs work, and I’ll probably break it for parts, but it’s an interesting thing to study.
Inmoov2
I’ve made a little progress here, though my time has mostly been taken up by the Sanbots. I’ve started building the power management area and have added a screen to the front of the robot. I hope to have it fully running on batteries by the end of May.
ROS2 and the Rover Robot
Very little progress this month on ROS2 learning, due to all the Sanbot development.
Gwiz and predictive driving
After the mess with Autoglass—who, to be fair, did compensate me very well—I managed to fit my own windscreen. Pretty messy business, but at least it’s fixed. Now I need to prepare it for the MOT. If it fails, I guess that’s the end of that.
AI
It still amazes me how powerful Large Language Models (LLMs) are. They help me daily, and I can only see myself using them more. The Sanbot app above connects to OpenAI and uses Azure Search AI to tell clients about our products.
Engagement
It’s definitely exciting times—I proposed to my partner Ruth a few weeks back at the top of The Shard, and she said yes!
Conclusion
I think I’m making good progress with the Sanbots, and I’m hopeful to get the InMoov2 Robot moving very soon. The Sanbots give me valuable insight into how a commercial company approaches robotics—from engineering and electronics to the SDK. This has been both insightful and helpful for my journey moving forward.
The only downside is that it has pulled me away from working on ROS2 for a bit, but I’m hoping to get back to that shortly. I’m still focused on my goal in robotics—the target just keeps evolving.
