crosspost from WillowGarage.com
The folks from Oddwerx came to Willow Garage for a visit recently.  For those who aren't already familiar with Oddwerx, it is a very cool initiative to turn an iPhone or Android phone into an autonomous robot.  In the first video you can see how Ted Larson, Bob Allen and Brandon Blodget from Oddwerx took a PS3 Game Controller and plumbed it together to send its ROS messages to an Oddwerx Robot running its own ROS node for controlling the motors and legs.  They took advantage of the existing ROS packages which support interacting with the PS3 joystick, which is in use on many robots including the PR2. Â
Fashion was front and center in this second video when the Oddwerx robot "grew" purple hair.  In addition to responding to PS3 ROS messages, the robot was programmed to send audio/video to enable teleoperation.  Since ROS employs publish/subscribe, multiple subscribers can just listen into the live video feed.
Oddwerx is now a Kickstarter project.  If you share their vision to turn smartphones into mobile robotic ROS platforms, then support this effort on Kickstarter.
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