OttoDIY - Build Your Own Robot

OttoDIY is an open source project with a wide community. Essentially, it is a small robot made up of an Arduino, 4 servo motors, an ultrasonic sensor, and a few other parts from a 3D printer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlJYo574Dfg&list=PLZWNQlcHslXXcsrzhz0BEUgLjQUAASWql&index=3&t=0s

You program the robot just like any other program running on an Arduino. You use the Otto library, which has functions like walk(), sing(), etc. So you can easily make a program like - if you see an obstacle, beep, if not, go straight.

The author is Mr. Camilo Parra Palacio. The company is based in Brno - LOL. I like the project itself, but I have some reservations about it. The rest of the article will be about those reservations.

The kit arrived from China (which I didn’t know…), about a month after ordering. It’s basically a few (quite low-quality) components in a box. I don’t know if that justifies the 3x higher price than if I had bought the components directly on Aliexpress :)

I also can’t stand their website, which constantly redirects you somewhere else - this one to a shop running on a completely different system, that one to wiki tutorials, running somewhere else again, and where the link to download the manual leads to Google Drive…

Another problem I had was with the switch - the robot simply can’t be turned off. The switch doesn’t work, the button always returns back. I would attribute other problems to my not-so-high-quality 3D printer.