Sep 19, 2014 | By Alec
American telecommunications company Qualcomm has unveiled a cool little combination of 3D printing technology and smartphones: the fully printable Snapdragon Micro Rover. This little robot was developed to experiment with the capabilities of a smartphone. What would happen when you harness a smartphone's computing power in a movable contraption? And, as the Qualcomm team noted, 'After spending many hours in the lab and testing an array of prototypes, the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ Micro Rover was born.'
This Micro Rover is powered through the smartphone's Snapdragon processor and mounted on a little 3D vehicle. It uses a IOIO board as an I/O break-out and can be connected to the android phone using either Bluetooth or the Android Accessory Development Kit. The Micro Rover runs on five AAA batteries.
What can it do, you ask? Well, Qualcomm have programmed their miniature racer to do a few things: You can manually drive it around using their Navigation Android app, while it comes with a forklift that allows the little robot to manipulate it surroundings. More impressively, the Snapdragon processor has also been programmed to allow the vehicle to autonomously follow targets.
However, it is arguably much more than a smartphone RC car or a new device to annoy your cat with. For it looks like Qualcomm are really offering 3D printing enthusiasts and tinkerers a cool toy to customize and play with.
All designs and programming have been made available on their website, and they invite everyone to build their very own Micro Rover. '[It is] a great platform to create your own DIY or STEM education project. We encourage you to modify our designs and software to create your own unique version of the Micro Rover.'
So the question should be, what can you achieve with a 3D printed, smartphone-powered robot?
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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