CES 2014: Building Self-Guiding Lego Robots for Fun and (Maybe) Profit (Video)

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Lauro Ojeda is a researcher at the University of Michigan who also works with a Korean company, Microinfinity, that says it works with everything "from basic sensors to full navigation systems, and is becoming the world leading navigation system company." Prof. Ojeda also has a personal website, robotnav.com, where he posts his navigation and control code (under an open source license, of course) that you are welcome to download, play with, install on any suitable device you have handy, and modify at will. A lot of his work is with Lego-based robots because they're both inexpensive and readily available almost anywhere. If you already have a good-sized Lego collection, you probably only need a few pieces to follow or even surpass Prof. Ojeda's work. And who knows? If you manage to make an autonomous Lego robot, your next stage may be a car that drives itself so you can watch SyFy reruns on your way to work instead of worrying about the truck in the left lane that looks like it's about to make a right turn.