Humans for Robots Launches Miniature Goliath 3DoT-Powered Remote Operated Vehicle Crowdfunder

Made from 3D-printed parts and assembled like an Airfix kit, the Goliath is powered by the flexible 3DoT Bluetooth controller board.

Gareth Halfacree
4 years ago β€’ Robotics / 3D Printing
The 3D-printed model is built to a 1/125 scale. (πŸ“·: Humans for Robots)

Humans for Robots' Jaap de Dood has launched a crowdfunding campaign for Goliath, a model kit based on a World War II bomb-disposal robots and powered by the company's flexible 3DoT robotics board.

The 3DoT is a compact board designed to make building a telepresence robot as simple as possible. The single board includes power, processing, and communication capabilities, requiring only motors and some kind of chassis to build a Bluetooth-controllable robot. Last October, Humans for Robots' Jeff Gomes published an interesting design for exactly such a chassis β€” a 1/125-scale Goliath tank, an unmanned ground vehicle used for mine disposal by German forces.

"Goliath is the world's first robot that combines good old fashioned model building with modern technologies such as 3D printing, programming and telerobotics," claims de Dood of the project. "Goliath is made up of 84 high quality 3D-printed parts and 20 small pieces of hardware, carefully designed to match the looks of the original Goliath series of tanks while functioning as a multi-purpose, customisable ROV.

"When you are finished assembling your Goliath, slide in it's brains, engine and communication hub: the 3DoT board. Now, your Goliath is ready to be charged by USB, remote controlled and programmed! No extra devices needed."

With the 3DoT board in place, the Goliath robot can operate in autonomous, remote control, and "community" modes β€” the latter offering the ability to mount a smartphone and have the board controlled remotely over the internet, complete with live video feed. Both remote control modes are based on the ArXrobot application, while the robot β€” and app β€” can be customised by anyone familiar with Arduino programming.

Pricing for the Goliath kits starts at $249 on the project's Kickstarter campaign page; more information on 3DoT and Goliath can also be found on their respective Hackster.io project pages.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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