Here's an example of running a Raspberry on Bittle robot dog https://gitlab.com/sdv.bot/bittle:
"Attempts to get SOAFEE Software Defined Vehicle architecture working on the Petoi Bittle robot. Tested on Raspberry 5 w/ 8GB."
So instead of running on a real(much more expensive) vehicle, Darwin Sanoy experimented with running SOAFEE on Bittle.
Normally, we recommend users to be 10+ years old.
But if you are already experienced with coding, you can help your grandson get started with block-based coding(https://www.petoi.camp/forum/software/web-api-to-control-nyb...) after he builds the robot.
You can control the robot with the included remote control or the Petoi mobile app with 35+ built-in commands.
We have the APIs through OpenCat(https://github.com/PetoiCamp/OpenCat). You can control every servo movement via coding.
You can program the robot to move around and perform new skills to mimic a real dog's behaviors.
Bittle has a tiny body, but it has strong and fast servos for running and even backflipping(check this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRE-sp05ia8&list=TLGG0bKEfuY...). We custom-designed our own high-quality servos which are half of the prices of any comparable servos.
We already had a prototype with 3 degrees of freedom on the legs. But the structural complexity and price would have increased substantially. We are not releasing it at this moment.
In addition to the points you raised, one of the big challenges is to manage the supply chain and the bill of materials. For example, during covid, we faced the challenges of chip shortage.
For any hobbyist project, people don't really need to worry about things at scale.
It's a programmable robot dog that you can program in C++/Python/block-based coding.
You can check the application links on the side bar menu at https://docs.petoi.com/
We will roll out a newer version of robot cat around July.
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Check out Petoi Bittle robot dog(https://www.petoi.com/products/petoi-bittle-robot-dog) for under $270. It has a complete set of tools for entry-level robotics. The motion controller is a Arduino-like controller and can connect to many third-party sensor modules such as camera, gesture & microphone. It supports C++ and Python API
It runs on open source software OpenCat and can integrate with Pi or ROS.
