CATPOO 2021 — A New Beginning

Note: This post is a work-in-progress and will be updated as requirements are fully fleshed out.

Way back when I started playing around with robotics and electronics years ago, the most important thing to me was having a good name for my robotics projects. I came up with Cat Antagonizing Tactical Platform Of Oppression (or CATPOO for short). With the hardest part done, I remembered following the KISS principle. Within a week, I had a working remote controlled robot. It had a wireless access point with a web based UI with streaming video from the robot’s perspective. It just worked, and was compatible with every phone and laptop thrown at it.

However, aesthetically it was a mess. Ever since then, I’ve been running into situations where I’ve gone way into the weeds chasing a particular look without any concern for functionality. I’ve finally become fed up with spending tons of time creating robots that look great, but are difficult to work on. I’m tired of having to spend 45 minutes tearing it down to swap out of a single part, or check a single solder point.

We’re going way back to my original design: a cube with 4 wheels. Once I get everything working well, then and only then, will I begin to care about aesthetics again.

Continued Reading

I was originally going to have one long and lengthy post about my goals, but decided it’d be easier for me to break up into smaller chunks. I’ll be adding to the following list as I continue fleshing out the project.

1. CATPOO 2021 — What Does It Do?
2. CATPOO 2021 — Power Supply
3. CATPOO 2021 — Internal Structure