• Nintendo DS running a minimal HTTP server and accepting commands from a web browser or RoboCtrl
• 2 standard servos wired up to DSerial² interface card for DS
• 4x AA NiMH batteries to power the servos
• Battery voltage read-out via ADC on DSerial

• Nintendo DS running a minimal HTTP server and accepting commands from a web browser or RoboCtrl
• 3 standard servos and a laser pointer wired up to DSerial interface card for DS
• 1.2GHz wireless spy camera for 1st person view
• 4200mAh 11.1V Li-Poly batteries and two >90% efficient power converters, one for camera and one for servos and DS
• Runtime of up to 16 hours
• Battery voltage read-out via ADC on DSerial
• Automatic power-off once batteries reach preset voltage
• Robot has run 24/7 for almost 3 months at the time of writing and has been featured on Engadget, Gizmodo and other high-profile sites

Requirements

• Web host with PHP and MySQL
• Computer connected to the Internet

Step 1: Installing Red5 open-source flash server

Download Red5 and install it onto the computer that is going to be connected to your webcam(s). Don’t forget to map ports 8088, 1935 and 5080 to that computer, if you have a router.

Step 2: Installing RoboCtrl

Download RoboCtrl and extract it into a folder on your webserver.

Step 2.1: Settings

Create a new database (using phpMyAdmin, for example) and a user for that database. Then edit robot.php to point it to your database.

Also set the following variables in robot.php:

$camera_host should be the host name or IP of your Red5 server
$robot_host should be the host name or IP of your robot
$admin_host should be the host name or IP that admin_nick will be reserved for
$admin_nick nickname of the administrator

Step 2.2: Final database installation

Run install.php in your web browser. It will create required tables in the database.

Step 2.3: Test web interface

Open your RoboCtrl site in a web browser. It should keep a queue of people and chat should work.

Step 3: Setting up camera(s)

Currently RoboCtrl supports up to 2 webcameras. On your webcam computer, open broadcaster.swf in the browser. It will ask you to allow to use your webcams and afterwards you should see the video stream in RoboCtrl web interface.

For the left static camera view, you can set up a periodic FTP uploader (many programs exist, search around). You should set it to upload to images/webcam.jpg.

Step 4: Using RoboCtrl

RoboCtrl interface should be now up and running. You can open it in your web browser and see the video stream if it’s your turn in the queue.

If your robot is not RoboDS, you need to modify robot_command() function in robot.php so that it sends the proper HTTP URLs to control your robot.