I had a recent look at the Romotive web site and noticed that there’s a banner saying that the product is no longer for sale. That doesn’t look good to me. It sounds like they’re not going to be doing Romo anymore, or at least not in its current form. I hope that they’ll continue to do something with robotics as they were really good and I’ve had a lot of fun with my Romos.
Tag: Romo
A Robot that was on Kickstarter initially and now seems to have totally vanished from everywhere
Romos I and II side by side
It’s interesting to see these two devices side by side and compare the quite startling differences between them. It isn’t just size, it’s build quality and finish, and, basically, everything!
Quite amazing really. It’s a shame the Romotive seem to have now vanished off the face of the earth.
Romo II
I’ve wanted a Romo II for a while now. I originally funded the first Romo on Kickstarter, but never got the second one. So I finally managed to get hold of one on eBay for just a few pounds.
So I’m looking forward to getting this one going and maybe even doing something using both of them together.
Whatever happened to Romotive?
I was thinking more about Romo and the company that made them, Romotive. I know that they made their second version of Romo, which I didn’t kickstart, but I was wondering what happened to them after that. Their site doesn’t really seem to say what they’re up to at all. I think it would be a shame if that was it for them. Not least because I’d like to know a bit more about those aux ports as I’ve mentioned before.
I guess start ups like this come and go and they don’t always last. Which is inevitable.
It’s time that littleBits started to play nicely with others …
So having carried out a number of experiments using the Romo I’ve decided that a more musical robot is needed, and that will require something more bespoke. So I’ve chosen Mindstorms as a starting place, but of course for the musical side, littleBits is ideal. Connecting the two will now be easy, because of the above.
More experiments with Romo
Romo and Lumiphone
Romo and Lumiphone
Lumiphone
Romo and Lumiphone
Experimenting with attaching other devices to the Romo. The idea was to use a simple velcro patch to attach a little light sensitive instrument to the front of the Romo. That way it could make a noise depending on how much light was going into it.
It did work. It was ok, but not that interesting. However, it means I can attach other stuff to Romo and do some more experiments at some point. Which I will do.
Getting going with the Romo again
It’s been a long time since I was able to post about anything to do with robotics, so it’s great to be messing about with Romo again. There’s a few things I’ve got planned to try out with Romo.
Expect experiments in due course.
How to make Romo more creative
I was mucking around with Romo, trying to get it over a little assault course the other day. It was fun, but it did make me start to wonder about what sort of creative applications could be made for Romo? I’m not sure he could be used for music, or at least not in the current form of Romo.
Aside from creative applications I would like to see a few other features available for Romo, like the ability to log in to a Romo over the web to be able to use it as a remote web cam perhaps.
Romo recharging
Doesn’t it look nice when it’s charging up?
Romo from the desktop
I’ve been using the Romo desktop Mac OSX app as well recently, and it’s really good. It’s very useful to be able to use the arrow keys to steer with, almost better than the virtual joystick. The only downside is that there’s no way to record video from it. Even so, it’s good to have another way to control Romo.
I am Ashley Elsdon 