Most of us don’t have $15,000 to dump upon an Anybot, even though having a single around would be nice in the eventuality we don’t feel like withdrawal the house to get some coffee. To help those of us with some-more humble means, our aged friend Johnny Chung Lee (of Wiimote hacking and Kinect dev team fame) has employed his prodigious DIY talents to emanate a video chat robot for a relatively insignificant sum of $500. Using an iRobot Create ($250), a netbook with Skype ($250), a cable to connect the dual, as well as a little carry out program he wrote himself, Mr. Lee built the digital broker on a cheap. Johnny isn’t the initial person to so precedence iRobot’s hacking height, though he added a stand upon tip of a drudge to get a PC closer to human tallness, trustworthy the fish-eye lens to the webcam for better remote observation, and even did some re-wiring to allow the netbook to charge via a Create’s bottom hire. The code as well as how-to instructions are up on his blog, so strike the source couple if you’re feeling up to making one yourself. Seems like Johnny Lee’s putting that Google 20 percent time to good make use of thus distant — keep ‘em entrance. Check a video of this ultimate origination after a break.

Via Engadget