Andrey Mikhalchuk’s Blog

New interesting DIY on my other site: how to control Pleo with Wii Nunchuck.

Looking for routerbots and other robotics stuff? It’s not here anymore. I created a new web space 100% dedicated to robotics called RoboStuff.com. It’s better, cleaner, englisher and it’s for everyone. If you have your robotics project and looking for a please to publish it please contact me and get your personal project page on robostuff.com. Also new website is not only about DIY Projects, but also contains news, robopedia, catalog of robots and more robotics stuff. New information is being added almost every day.

If you decided to mod your wrt54gl router and turn it into one of the most capable routers for soho network, probably the first mod you should start with is adding serial interface to it. Why? Because when you do the other mods (like adding SD reader, turning into robot, adding leds etc) you definitely send the router into the brick state. And the best way to unbrick it is to look at the router’s console output. The entire operation is very easy and should not take longer then 1 hour. Here is how to do this:

Pleo is a wonderful dinosaur, way more charming then roboraptor and other sapiences. It is the most advanced toy robot currently available on the market in the <$700 price range (Pleo price is around $330 shipped). It has a huge potential which is limited by the fact it is completely standalone. I tried to fix this by adding bluetooth interface to it. This mod allows issuing commands to Pleo from virtually any bluetooth-enabled device, including many cell phones, communicators and generic computers. It also allows retrieving information from Pleo on-the-fly, like sounds it hears, pictures it sees etc.

Before you continue reading this post please acknowledge that this mod is not approved by Ugobe and most probably will void the warranty. Also there is always a chance that something will go wrong and you might damage your robopet. If you're going to implement this mod you are the only one responsible for damaging this very expensive toy. I'm providing the information below only as a personal experience for educational purposes.

And here is how to make it:

I’ve uploaded the new video about getting your very own wireless dinosaur. It shows how you can control Pleo from almost any bluetooth-enabled device, including cellphones, smartphones, communicators, PCs etc. All you need is bluetooth and a terminal program.
I’m going to publish more details about how to make Pleo wireless later next week. Nothing complicated :)