Home Security Robot
October 10, 2023I developed a home security proof of concept in May for my final year project at the University of Portsmouth. After iterating through several other ideas, I finalized this idea because it combined my love of programming with my love of electronics and engineering.
The idea came from Amazon's home security robot, Astro. Although this robot is currently available under invite only as of writing this, it was revealed to sell for about $1500. I looked at this product and similar ones and thought I could make it cheaper while also scratching that mechanical and electronic engineering itch I had.
The idea was for a proof of concept, a fully autonomous robot that could detect objects in front of it and be accessed remotely through the internet.
The project was made in two main sections: the app and the robot.
The App
The app was made in Flutter, using the Dart programming language. I had never used this platform before so this was the first app I had ever made using it.
The Robot
Given more time, I think I could have dedicated more time to how the robot looked, but since it was a proof of concept, I was prioritising its functionality.
The robot was made using a simple car kit I found on Amazon. The way I mounted things to the chassis is just simply by drilling holes in the acrylic plastic and using screws.
For those interested in more of the technical aspects of this project, I made the source code available on Github with further details in the README file.