Hello again! Yes, there has been another lapse between updates (and this author is partly to blame), but work has still been proceeding.

Recent meetings have been dedicated to repairs and maintenance on the robots (plus adding a slow blink), and earlier this month, Daniel gave a presentation on the project to the local IEEE Robotics and Automation group. It was here that the idea to place KEN onto a mobile base resurfaced.

At tonight’s meeting, we ended up in discussions about motivating ideas for the project, and the mobile base turned out to be quite popular. While interesting (and still on the to-do list), it seems that game-playing just isn’t quite as compelling as autonomous movement and navigation on a robot’s feature list.

Having settled on this for our next major goal, we spent the rest of the meeting working out requirements. The first one, of course, is that it has to look like a Dalek. (But don’t worry, “does not actually exterminate” is also a requirement – it was suggested that we call it “The Friendly Dalek.”)

The addition of mobility will open up many new possibilities for the humanoid robot project. It will also take a lot of (fun!) work. There is plenty of room (and need) for more people to join us, so we hope to see you at our next meeting!