Rackham
The Robot
Rackham is a B21r robot (iRobot). It is a 4-feet (52 cm)
tall and 20-inches (118 cm) wide cylinder topped with a mast
supporting a kind of helmet. It integrates 2 PCs (one mono-
CPU and one bi-CPUs running P3 at 850 MHz). We have
extended the standard equipment with a pan-tilt Sony camera
EVI-D70 attached under the helmet, a digital camera mounted
on a Directed Perception pan-tilt unit, a ELO touch screen, a
pair of loudspeakers, an optical fiber gyroscope and wireless
Ethernet.
In order to integrate all these components in a robust and
pleasant way the "Cité de l'Espace" has designed a "head" on
a mast, the whole toped by an helmet which represents a kind
of one one-eyed modern pirate or an African art statue. The eye is materialized by the EVI-D70 camera
fixed upside-down above the helmet, the second camera is
hidden in the helmet and one loudspeaker is integrated in the
"mouth". The "nose" is only decorative. The mast has been
designed as high as possible to keep the cameras away from
children's hands.