News

August 2026: Sanbot Native ROS Driver

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. This was another active month on the robotics side, with the creation of the first native ROS2 driver for the Sanbot Elf and lots of refinements to the Platform.

Sanbot — a native ROS 2 driver, no bridge

The Sanbot Elf used to reach ROS through a bridge: a Python node on a laptop, polling the robot and republishing everything, so the laptop was on the network on the robot’s behalf. It now speaks DDS itself — the robot is the node. There’s no rclcpp for Android, so the transport is hand-written in Kotlin: discovery, serialisation, reliability, fragmentation, about 2,800 lines, talking to stock ROS 2 with nothing special on the other end. The driver also works with the USB Lidar that I attached to the robot, however, SLAM and Nav2 still need to run on another machine, but I am fine with that.

Keecker — hacking a dead robot back to life

The Keecker is a rolling home projector from a French company that folded years ago — Android inside, no SDK, never meant to be opened. Getting in was the whole job: in device mode its USB port answers Android Open Accessory, so my Mac registered itself as a USB keyboard and mouse and drove the robot’s on-screen menus by remote until I could turn on USB debugging and drop to plain ADB. A small voice-activated driver app now rides on top and re-pairs itself on boot, so the hack was the way in, not the way it runs.

Burf Platform — it docks itself, and drives around things

The Platform gained the two things that separate a demo from something you can leave running. It charges itself: a robot on a route watches its own battery, breaks off when it’s low, docks, charges, and resumes — all afternoon, no human. Both bugs on the way were the robot being correct: it kept undocking because voltage sags twenty points under load, so it charged to 82%, drove off, watched itself read 60%, and reasonably went back; and obstacle avoidance wouldn’t let it dock at all, because the dock is against a wall.

And it drives around things that weren’t on the map. Bumper or LiDAR trips, stop, wait thirty seconds, and if it’s still there mark a robot-sized no-go zone and replan around it. It failed on hardware six different ways against a pair of shoes — a bumper that cancelled its own countdown, a bumper that bounces ten times in two seconds, a released switch mistaken for a clear path — until I made myself write proper unit tests, which caught a seventh bug at the desk. This morning it worked end to end: one bump, one clean hold, a back-off, “New path found around it — 4 leg(s)”, and a neat arc around the shoes.

I had looked to run Nav2 on the TurtleBot, however, it seemed to push the robot past its Jetson Nano limits, which I did find odd.

Robotic Hand

So I have started work on building my own robot. I remodeled an unfinished robotic hand and got a basic demo working which I am happy about.

InMoov — teleoperated from a VR headset

A quieter month after July’s, but the Meta Quest teleop got real use — headset on, move your arms, the humanoid copies you. It’s worked since the end of July.

Plan for 2026 — honest scorecard

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics — steady. Consultancy delivering.
  • Launch Burf Platform as MVP — it docks itself and avoids obstacles now. Still no price and no first customer, which is the real bottleneck, and entirely mine.
  • Continue learning ROS 2 — best month yet: a hand-written RTPS transport on Android, running against stock ROS 2.
  • InMoov Robots — driver and VR teleop both working.
  • Continue Brilliant learning — ongoing.
  • Build my own robot product — already started.

What’s next

I really need to make sure the platform is working well and then focus on building my own robot.

July 2026: Inmoov Quality Time

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. July was a month of the robots telling me I was wrong. Six bugs found by watching a robot move, one found by listening to it not move — and every single one of them had passed a test first.

InMoov — a real ROS2 driver

After months of “nothing to report”, the InMoov finally got the attention it deserved. It now has a proper ROS2 interface: a ros2_control hardware driver in C++ talking to MyRobotLab over the network. Drag a slider in RViz and the real robot’s head turns.

The interesting part wasn’t the plumbing; it was the mapping. ROS2 thinks in radians, with a joint at zero when the robot is at rest. The servos think in degrees, 0–180, with a calibrated rest position — and on a hand-built robot those rest positions are nothing like symmetrical. On mine the left shoulder rests at 35° and the right at 62°. So the driver reads every servo’s real minimum, maximum and rest live from the robot at startup. A static table would have been wrong on day one.

Then I started dragging sliders and found six joints moving the wrong way in a single session. The head panned backwards. The shoulders moved in opposite directions to each other. The elbows bent backwards in the simulator while the real arm bent correctly — which is the nasty one, because the robot looks right and you only catch it by watching the 3D model instead of the machine. Each fix was one line. Finding them was the work, and the only tool that found them was a person looking at a robot.

Driving the InMoov from a VR headset

The other half of the month: a Meta Quest app that teleoperates it. Put the headset on, move your arms, and the robot copies you — head, shoulders, biceps, rotation. The rest-position problem came back harder, because a human shoulder and an InMoov shoulder share neither a range nor a zero. I enabled the joints one group at a time, because a wrong sign on a slider is a puzzle and a wrong sign on a life-size arm is a repair.

Two details worth keeping. The head needed an auto-neutral on engage — whatever pose your head is in when you connect becomes zero, or you inherit a permanent bias and fight it all session. And there’s a voice recentre command, because you can’t reach a keyboard wearing a headset with your arms in the air. Best bug of the lot: the code reading each servo’s limits treated a limit of 0.0 as “not set”. Zero is a perfectly ordinary minimum. Every servo whose travel started at zero was silently getting a default instead of the truth.

Sanbot — a real LiDAR, and a brake I couldn’t switch off

The Sanbot’s ROS2 side got honest this month. A real LDS-006 LiDAR over USB drives /scan, replacing the depth-camera hack it had been faking scans with. Closed-loop pose, IMU heading at source, and stepped turning that SLAM can actually follow. Watching a nine-year-old service robot build a map of my hallway was the most satisfying thing I did all month.

Then one long, doomed campaign. The Sanbot has a firmware proximity brake that stops it near obstacles — useful, until ROS2 is doing the navigating and the robot halts a metre short of a waypoint for reasons the planner knows nothing about. I found the switch that disables obstacle avoidance. I re-asserted it at every startup. I sent an undocumented MCU command that looked exactly like the one that would hide the front sensors. It cannot be disabled. The side sensors, yes. The front brake, no — not from software, at any level I can reach. So I deleted every lever I’d built for it and wrote down that it’s impossible, which is worth more than the code was.

TurtleBot2 — a proper LiDAR too

The Kobuki got the same treatment. It had been limping along on a depth-camera scan and an unreliable vendor SDK; it now has a real Okdo LD06 LiDAR publishing /scan through a custom node I wrote against the raw FTDI serial stream. Depth-scan is demoted to a legacy opt-in. Both robots pinned to /dev/serial/by-id paths, because device numbering changes the moment you plug something else in.

Burf Platform — waypoints that actually arrive

The Platform’s goto now drives room-to-room rather than just across open floor. Three fixes made the difference: denoising the occupancy grid before inflating it, treating deep unknown space differently from the thin rind around walls, and making the stall detector rotation-aware so a robot turning on the spot isn’t mistaken for a stuck one.

The inflation padding came down from 0.22 to 0.15 as well. Waypoints near furniture were stopping about a metre short — the goal was being nudged out to the inflation boundary, then the 0.30 accept radius stacked on top of that. Two reasonable numbers making one unreasonable one.

Plan for 2026 — honest scorecard

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics — steady. Consultancy delivering.
  • Launch Burf Platform as MVP — goto is genuinely usable now. Still no price and no first customer, which is the real bottleneck.
  • Continue learning ROS2 — best month yet. A ros2_control driver from scratch, two custom LiDAR nodes, and SLAM on a robot nobody expected to run it.
  • InMoov Robots — finally, properly, yes. Driver working, VR teleop working. (Big progress)
  • Continue Brilliant learning — ongoing.
  • Build my own robot product — paused

What’s next

Finish confirming the remaining joint directions on the InMoov, and finally record a video of the humanoid being teleoperated from a VR headset. That’s worked since the end of July and there’s still no footage of it — which, given it’s the best-looking thing in the workshop, is its own kind of bug.

March 2026: The Robot Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. So, as usual, my ability to focus on a single thing has gone Pete Tong. In the last edition, I was set on getting the Platform out there and seeing if it has legs. Instead, I purchased some new toys!

iPAL Humanoid Companion Robot
The first interesting addition to my robot collection is the iPAL robot — slightly taller than a Sanbot, it’s a super cute, child-like robot. It has working arms, though the fingers aren’t powered. It runs Android 7 and they’ve done a solid job with the software — the head tracking is a nice touch and the voice is surprisingly cute. I believe they still sell them, and it even comes with a ROS driver, which I’m looking forward to exploring.

Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV)
This large, monster truck-like robot was an interesting eBay find — clearly someone put serious money into building it. It runs the Herelink system with a CubePilot Cube Black brain, and comes equipped with GPS (Here2), Lidar, and a camera system. From the Android-powered controller you can send it GPS waypoints and off it goes autonomously. It’s a new area of robotics for me and I’m looking forward to spending more time with it.

PiBob Desktop Robot
I also built a desktop robot called PiBob. The aim was to design something fun that was as cheap and simple to build as possible — and it was great fun to make. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi 3 (had one lying around) and a servo shield, using affordable servos that keep the total build cost under £100 excluding the Pi. It’s still early stages, but I’m hoping to expand it into a larger, moving version.


The Platform
Not much progress on the Platform this month — I’ve been trying to find the headspace to properly define the MVP and the problem it actually solves. The current robot support list, outside of the ROS 2 driver, is fairly limited and a little dated. Once I’ve got clarity on the direction, I can move it forward with more purpose.


Tarot FY680 Heavy Lift Autonomous Drone
I bought this drone a few months back, but have never tried to fly it — out of pure fear. If this thing hits you or falls out of the sky, you’re going to get seriously hurt. It’s 1 meter tip to tip and can lift up to 7 kg. I’ve just completed my FlyerId and OperatorId, so I can now legally fly it, and my first flight was a brave 1 meter off the ground.

Burf Robotics
Not much progress this month — I’ve had a couple of chats with other companies, but I still haven’t actively gone out and marketed it. People have been coming to me, which is encouraging, but I need to change that dynamic.

ROS2
I’m continuously using ROS 2 but need dedicated time to expand my knowledge. This month I’ve been more focused on OLO consultancy work, which has come at the expense of learning. I need to prioritise this.

Brilliant
Continuing daily and at 479 days now. Like ROS 2, I need to push myself out of my comfort zone with it — or decide to drop it.

Hack24
Parked until I have time to properly test it.

Meta Quest Tracking
I spent a little time on this to see if it works with PiBob. The results were underwhelming, so it needs more attention before it’s useful.

InMoov Humanoid Robot
Nothing to report this month — and honestly, writing this blog has made it clear just how much I’ve lost focus. That needs to change.

Plan for 2026
The plan isn’t exactly going to plan — a lot of the goals above haven’t moved forward, but I did redirect my time towards some shiny new things instead.

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics and its offerings
    Target: Gain at least one additional customer. (Progressing)
  • Launch Burf Platform as an MVP
    Target: Deliver an MVP with user management, robot management, and support for a range of robot platforms. (Done)
  • Continue learning ROS2
    Target: Deepen my understanding of Nav2, MoveIt, and integrating AI with ROS2. (Needs more progress)
  • Inmoov Robots
    Target: Focus more on interactive demonstrations rather than building additional robots. I’d still like to develop a mobile InMoov platform. (Needs more progress)
  • Continue Brilliant learning
    (Needs more progress)
  • Build my own robot product
    Target: Not fully committed yet, but PiBob is a proof of concept and a step in that direction. (PiBob POC built)

Let’s be honest — I failed at formalising a plan this month. I’m going to sit with this blog post for a while and figure out what actually matters to me.

February 2026: The Platform Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. I have been super busy trying to get the first version of The Platform out to see if the idea has legs. Hopefully by next month I should know if it does.

The Platform
Formerly known as Burf Platform—a name that didn’t make much sense—the Platform is a robotics system designed to make it easy for users to teleoperate their robots. It is launching with ROS 2 support and also supports a range of other robots, including the Sanbot Elf, Double 2, and even the InMoov humanoid robot.

The goal is to contribute something meaningful to the field of robotics. There are plans to expand support to additional robot types, with a particular focus on helping hobbyists, supporting drones, and enabling data collection. A fully functional API is already available.

Burf Robotics
The goal is to continue to build the brand and client base. I have already had some positive talks with other robotics companies this month. I still have the lust to build my own robot, however The Platform is my current focus.

ROS2
I am continuously using ROS 2; however I need some focus time on expanding my knowledge. I have been focused on The Platform, and that needed limited ROS 2 functionality. I need to get back to the Udemy courses that I had started a while back.

I have started work on a PiCar ROS 2 driver (Ackermann-steering), and I have updated my TurtleBot2 to ROS 2, and it is now running a Jetson Nano instead of the Jetson TK1. I also purchased a VIAM robotic rover to try out.

Brilliant
Continuing daily and at 443 days now. Like ROS 2, I need to take myself out of my comfort zone.

Hack24
A blast from the past, Hack24 was one of my favorite game projects that I built over 10 years ago. Well, I decided to chuck the old Objective-C OpenGL code base at Claude and see if it could rewrite it in Swift using SceneKit, and I have to say, it did a good job. The server has been rewritten in Swift Vapor, as I need to focus on learning Swift again. I hope to release it pretty soon as a bit of fun.

Meta Quest Tracking
I have also started working on a Meta Quest 3 app to track body movement. This is to replace the Apple Vision Pro demo I had controlling the Inmoov Humanoid Robot, as I do not have access to the AVP anymore.

InMoov Humanoid Robot
I did have a brief play with one of my InMoov’s recently. The SD card in one of the Raspberry Pi’s had died, so I fixed that and ordered it a sound card and mic. I hope to use this with the tracking app very soon

Plan for 2026
The last month has been super busy, so yet again I find myself running before I have properly thought about the year’s goals. However, let’s see if there is any progress from last month.

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics and its offerings
    Target: Gain at least one additional customer. (Progressing)
  • Launch Burf Platform as an MVP
    Target: Deliver an MVP with user management, robot management, and support for a range of robot platforms. (Done)
  • Continue learning ROS2
    Target: Deepen my understanding of Nav2, MoveIt, and integrating AI with ROS2. (Needs more progress)
  • Inmoov Robots
    Target: Focus more on interactive demonstrations rather than building additional robots. I would still like to develop a mobile InMoov platform. (Progressing)
  • Continue Brilliant learning
  • Build my own robot product
    I am not fully committed to this yet; however, I did begin building my own robotic arm. Developing my own robot could be a valuable learning experience, particularly by designing and implementing the ROS2 drivers around custom hardware. This would focus on a robotic system with arms rather than a mobile platform. (Needs refining)

Hopefully, next month’s edition, I will actually finish formalising a plan.

December 2025: Christmas Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, I hope everyone is enjoying the run up to Christmas and that special time off with loved ones. Around this time I start to work out what I have achieved this year.

OLO Robotics
Formally BOW, I am chuffed to announce that I am contracting for them 1 day a week (outside my day job) testing their robotics platform. This is through Burf Robotics which means it has it’s first customer. They have lent me a Leo Robot to put their platform through its paces which is a great bit of ROS2 kit. This proves that my learning with ROS2 and setting up Burf Robotics was a good idea and also keeps me doing robotics regularly .


ROS2 Rover
I have also made some improvements to the ROS2 3D Printed Rover I built. I have added an IMU (MPU 6050 instead of MPU9250 due to counterfeit parts) however this introduces me in to sensor fusion as you need to fuse the ODOM with the IMU data. I need to spend more time on this but it should improve the rover and my knowledge of ROS2.

Double Robotics 2
A bit of a random buy one night but I now have an old Double Robotics 2 robot. This is like a tele-presence robot with a an iPad on top. It is actually a nice bit of kit and I hope to add it to my Burf Platform as my first iOS Robot. Most of my other robotics run Android


Burf Platform
So I am working on a idea around having a platform that allows remote control of old / hobbiest robots for people who can’t program there own robots but still want to use them. It’s still early stages but I hope to have a prototype up soon similar to the remote control app for the Sanbot robot. I want to use this as a learning project to learn a new technology, just deciding on what that is.

Claude Code
So about a month ago I moved from Cursor (brief use) to Claude Code and am amazed on how powerful it is. I mean it can do so much more compared to Cursor and ChatGPT. I would say the limits on the it are very tight compared to Cursor, however it is still a game changer.

Reviewing the Plan

So here was the latest plan from September before I lost my job:

  • Create a Sanbot Remote Control App
  • Continue to deepen my ROS2 knowledge
  • Continue Developing the InMoov Humanoids
  • Have Fun with the G-Wiz

So the G-Wiz has been paused for the moment as it needs new batteries, isn’t taxed (No longer free to tax) or insured and so there is too much up front effort to fun ratio right now.

I have not done a great deal with the Inmoov Humanoids because (as I have just remembered) I started building my own simple arm, to later build a whole robot as I wanted something I could own myself. The Inmoov robotics are fantastic however they can not be used for commercial gain. I think I may get back to this, however also need to work on the 3rd Inmoov robot

I have continued to improve my ROS2 knowledge and the work with OLO Robotics can only help this. This also shows Burf Robotics has potential.

The Sanbot Remote app, which will extend to the Afobot robot and then later the Double robotics 2 robot, will become the Burf Platform (Name to change) which I have a lot of ideas for. After the OLO Robotics work, the Burf Platform will be my focus for a bit.

So on reflection, the last month has actually involved a lot more robotics than I expected after losing my job.

June 2025: Rock, Paper Scissors Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, the focus on robotics has continued throughout the last month which is always a good sign!

MTC: Robotics and Automation Event
So we are exhibiting at the Robotics and Automation event at the MTC again which is a fantastic event based in Coventry. This year we are focusing on Bespoke AI and using a couple of my robots to demo it. We are taking a Sanbot Elf robot to wander around and interact with people (face detection etc). This is running a similar app to the one we wrote for the Film and Movie event last month, but with a focus on AI.

I have also been busy getting the 2nd Inmoov humanoid robot ready for the show. This is running a Rock Paper Scissor AI demo which is all offline. The robot detects faces, asks to play you at the game, then detects your hand, works out what hand you have played via a LLM and then returns a witty message via another LLM. I should find out tomorrow how well it works however in testing it has been pretty good.

Gwiz and predictive driving
The Gwiz passed it’s MOT, yup I am totally shocked. So now I am working on getting it properly kitted out. I have 1 dead battery that I am trying to replace and once that has been done I will be wiring it up with all sorts of sensors. I am pretty excited about this!

ROS2 and the Rover Robot
Very little progress this month on ROS2 learning, due to all of the other robotics stuff going on.

AI
As mentioned last month, this is continuing to have a bigger and bigger impact in the things I do on a daily basis. After the show, I hope to sit down and brainstorm the next few months goals and how to achieve them.

Conclusion
Due to work, I am getting more and more time to do robotics which is great, however I still need to define what my goal is. Am I mainly doing this for fun, or do I want to build something that turns in to a product? When I first created Burf.com search engine, the Internet was a simpler place. Now, everything is moving at such a rate, by the time I have an idea, it already exists. I like the idea of renting robots out, or building custom robotics things for events but is there a need for that?

April 2025: Where did March go?

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf update. In this update, I try to think about what happened in March! I am sure I did something.

Burf.co Blog
I have updated some of the robotics pages attached to the blog. Nothing massive, but it helps to focus on robotics, etc.

MyRobotLab + The Inmoov + LLM = InMoov Remote
So, this little side project turned out to be useful for making a demo video for a client. It was just prototyping, but still useful. I used hand signals to turn on and off the robot’s microphone, then forward all verbal commands to a custom LLM, allowing full control of the response back. The large language model had been trained on their brochure for context. I did add my own LLM bridge, as mentioned last month.

ROS2 and the Rover Robot
I have continued to learn ROS2, there is still so much to learn. I am nearly halfway through another course.

Inmoov2 on wheels

So still a work in progress (hugely), but I have built a platform attached to an old electric wheelchair and mounted my second Inmoov robot to it. It’s a bit of a beast, but you have to start somewhere. The idea is to use a Raspberry Pi 5 to control the robot, any big compute load will be sent to another computer to process (e.g, voice and LLM). I want a truly mobile robot to take and show people.

Inmoov1
So my main Inmoov robot got fired up last week. I had fitted a new arm to it and hadn’t had time to test it. This was for another demo for someone who found me on LinkedIn. I do find it an exciting time.

Gwiz and predictive driving
Autoglass has proper messed me around, and after 6 weeks, the Gwiz is still not fixed. The batteries are now degrading, and it’s not looking good, sadly. Not sure right now what to do.

AI
Still doing exciting things with AI, if only I could remember all the cool things it teaches me. I did a cool demo using ChatGPT, taking an image and working out where a robotic arm should move to. That was pretty cool.

Brilliant
I am still using this app heavily, I am now taking notes on things I learn as it’s gotten a lot harder! I think my streak is 127 days!

Birthday
So I am now 1 year older and as always, I got some new kit. I got a ROS2 book to read, an IMU sensor to play with, and a super cool ESP32-S3 development board (comes with all sorts)

Conclusion
Again, not sure there is one, but I feel I am focusing on robotics, which is the aim. My weight, sadly, has gone through the roof and needs to be reigned in!

February 2025: Igniting the fire!

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, in this update we have an exciting title! So what I have I been doing?

Burf.co Blog
So I have spent some time updating the content of the blog in hopes that it will focus me on the future which for me is robotics. I hope to re-ignite my Facebook page and spread my news a little further (when there is something useful to say). I have added an AI page and broken down my robotics projects into technology (LEGO, VEX, Inmoov, and ROS).

It does help me realise that I have still achieved some cool things, not as much as I hoped but progress is continuing. I still have some content to add, so this is a WIP.

MyRobotLab + The Inmoov + LLM = InMoov Remote
So one of my goals was to understand MyRobotLab more and be able to write my own external Python scripts to control the Inmoov Humanoid Robot and the LLM (Ollama) that it uses. It’s still a work in progress but I have made a working demo which can be found here:

Features so far:

  • Consume webcam feed and apply YOLO11 and/or Hand/Face detection
  • Stop and start the robot listening
  • Can get the robot to speak, or respond to a text input (e.g answer a question)
  • Lists all responses back from MRL
  • Can ask the LLM for a response
  • Maps all of the services to JSON so that you can get things like a list of gestures.

Next, I want to put my own LLM layer in so that I can bypass MyRobotLab chatbot. This will allow me to add a database connection so I can record responses to review plus add a memory of sorts.

ROS2 and the Rover Robot
Good news on that front also, I have continued my ROS2 course and I have fixed the major issues with the Rover Robot when trying to get it to use NAV2 and SLAM. It was all to do with the CostMap and inflation_radius. Basically, the obstacles it detected, it inflated their area too much so that it could not plot a route around them.

The aim is to complete the ROS2 course (another course) I am doing on Udemy, refine the Rover Robot so it works a lot better using SLAM and NAV2, and then build a much better version that’s at least half-human-size.

Gwiz and predictive driving
Progress with the Gwiz has sadly stalled at the moment. First, it was the cold weather killing the batteries and now someone has smashed the windowscreen. Autoglass has tried to replace it however it has turned into a bit of a custom job as there are not many Gwizs left on the road.

AI
All of the above heavily realises on AI in some form or another. I now use ChatGTP and other LLMs on a daily basis to help me achieve tasks, at work, I am now training models across data sets to detect trends, anomalies, and insights. It is quite extraordinary how fast it has entered a large part of my life. There is no goal attached to this heading, just a reflection.

Conclusion
Not sure if conclusion is the right word, but focusing on the 3 areas above is at least a good start for me on becoming more focused. Each one could take me into an exciting area, it’s just coming up with the use case and sharing the knowledge.

December 2024: Christmas Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, I hope everyone is enjoying the festive season. I have always been a big kid and especially love Christmas. It’s also a time to reflect and set new goals for next year.

Burf.co
As of the 10th of December, Burf.co has had 3,645,694 searches. The current breakdown shows that I need to focus on file searches. I think Burf.co will change next year to something more useful.


Inmoov Robot
Not a lot has happened in the last month; however, work has started on repairing the main InMoov robot, and parts have been ordered for the second one. I am trying to get back into it.

Camper Van
Camping with the new partner was awesome, and we plan to do a lot more next year. There is not a lot to say on the technical front.

Electric Motorbike
Parked

Rover Robot / ROS2
So I have completed the online ROS2 course to make a rover that uses SLAM Toolbox, Nav2, etc. I need to finish building the actual robot but that’s only a few hours of work. This has been my main focus over the last few weeks. ROS2 isn’t easy to learn but I am slowly getting there. I plan to do a self-driving and a robotic arm ROS2 project

Gwiz
Yup, I have a new Gwiz! I have never owned the same car more than once let alone 3 times. I got a brilliant deal and hope to do some very cool stuff with it. This all kinda links in with ROS2 / Burf.co future plans

Electric Wheelchair
So I wrote some better software for this ready to be used as a robotics platform.

ChatGPT / AI
I have started using ChatGPT a bit through work. This has led me to learn Azure AI services and all sorts, which is really interesting. As said this is mainly for work however it gets me thinking about how I may use it for my robotics projects.

Governor
There is so much I want to do in life that I took the hard decision of resigning as a Governor. I did manage for nearly 2 years which isn’t too bad however things were ramping up and I didn’t have the bandwidth sadly.

Brilliant Math App
I finally bought a membership to this app and have been doing a bit of maths every day for a couple of weeks. I am still really enjoying it. I hope this will help me with my robotics.

Goals for the end of the year
With only a few weeks of the year left, how am I doing against my goals?

  • Stay around 80-82KG (DONE, currently 81)
  • Camp at least 1 more time this year in the VW (DONE in October and planned one in December)
  • Finish the YouTube robotics series of videos (DONE, finished this week)
  • Get the remote wheelchair working (DONE)
  • Stay on top of being a governor (Decided to resign)
  • Re-start the maths learning (DONE)

Based on the above, I would say I am doing really well. I feel like I am in a good headspace, I am actively learning and focusing on Robotics. Work and home life are good, all I need to do now is keep it that way.

I will try and do another post before the end of the year listing all the things I have achieved this year and then start figuring out plans for next year.

September 2024: The Reboot Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, I feel this is the re-start of some fun times ahead :). With most people, August was mainly written off due to family holidays (and canceled ones), etc however, now that is over, it’s time to get my head down and focus!

The Elephant has left the room
If you read my last blog post, I wasn’t in the best place however, I honestly feel like I am turning a corner and feel pretty positive about the future 🙂

Burf.co
Since I put Burf.co back to its old state (11th July), it has had 1,186,315 searches which is quite bonkers! Now a lot of this will be bots etc, but it’s still quite an interesting result.

Inmoov Robot
So, I have not done much in fixing my Inmoov robot, but I randomly found another in Wales and have started fixing that, this one will mounted to a mobile platform :). I feel super lucky to find one. I have also dug out the electric wheelchair to pair with the new robot, or at least get the platform working. If you look at the picture you can see the fresh white printed parts which are the bits I have fixed so far.

Camper Van
The camper van had a charging issue which I have managed to fix. The main goal here is to use it regularly :). I also fitted a split charger to the van, I feel like this has some good possibilities.

Sinclair C5
My Sinclair C5 had a meltdown at the same time the Harley blew up (expensive) however, I have also managed to re-wire that and it now works and should be a lot more reliable 🙂

Electric Motorbike
Randomly, I dug out the electric motorbike this weekend, did some welding, and printed a new 3D mount for it. I hope to test it this week

Maths / Brilliant App
I am planning to come back to this soon. I have just started doing a Math diploma I bought last year. I am hoping to get more focus.

Rover Robot / ROS2
I have failed on this because of the personal life issues that have had gone on with the ex (a long story), and the sadly canceled holiday to Vegas (dream holiday) however there have been some silver linings that have put me in a good headspace. I am thankful for this and hopeful for the future.

A5 Laser Engraver
When I went to get the Inmoov Robot from Wales, the epic guy also sold me an A5 ATOMSTACK Laser engraver with software that has been super easy to use. I have managed to cut shapes from this in wood.

Let’s revisit the goals

Life Goals
I originally wanted to get to 85-90KG and I am at 80KG and in good shape. I am proud of my progress here. I would say my health goals are pretty much achieved. I would like to continue running which was going well and doing the gym with Alfie. At some point, I am going to focus on doing a muscle-up. I also carried on being a school governor (barely) and I now have a camper van which relaxes the truck. The loft has lights and I have a large shed.

Education Goals
I finished my MBA and still try to keep on track of new content and the Slack channel. I still try and join a few sessions a month and have been asked to do a session on robotics. I would like to make sure I do this video. I did complete the self-driving course and I have done more Maths this year than most. I would like to do some more Maths this year, however again a pretty good result.

Projects
So the main one was to fix the Inmoov robot which I did do, I also learned the software (MRL) and feel quite happy with the progress I have made. I would like to be more active on the Discord channel and Facebook ground but again, I have achieved a lot. I had parked the electric motorbike project when I hit a big issue however, I am going to give the a quick punt again. I haven’t done a lot with Burf.co however I am not that worried. I did get the mobility scooter and electric wheelchair working via remote control.

Goals for the end of the year
I feel like I have done pretty well so far, I have gained a few more skills (welding, 3D modeling, etc) however I would like to bullet point some top-level items.

  • Stay around 80-82KG (Life)
  • Camp at least 2 more times this year in the VW (Life)
  • Finish the YouTube robotics series of videos (Robotics / Education)
  • Stay on top of being a governor (Life)
  • Do robotic video for MBA course (Robotics)
  • Complete my course on mental health (Education)
  • Re-start the maths learning (Education)

I think that’s pretty easy to achieve, I could keep adding but I feel that does not help me focus on what I want to do.