In progress

Droids, starting small

Our first droid is Desk Scout (working name), a palm-sized two-wheel rover you drive with an ordinary Bluetooth game controller. It's the start of a planned line of small hobbyist droids, approachable for new makers, that share one Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W controller board, so each new droid is mostly a new printed shell. Everything is designed in-house in Arizona.

Palm-sized two-wheel rover with LED eyes and simple sounds
Drives with a PS4, Xbox or Switch style Bluetooth controller
Runs on AA batteries or a USB power bank
Built for makers 14 and up, with enclosed gears and a low top speed
Designed and test-printed in Arizona

Concept & design

Desk Scout (working name)

Line-art concept sketch of Desk Scout, a small two-wheeled rover with a caster, shown from the front, left side and rear three-quarter views. — Early concept sketch of Desk Scout. Expect the details to change as we build and test the real parts.

A palm-sized two-wheel rover with a 3D-printed shell, LED eyes and a few simple sounds. You drive it with an ordinary Bluetooth game controller (PS4, Xbox or Switch style).

It's the first in a planned line of small hobbyist droids, approachable for new makers. They'll share the same Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W controller board, so each new droid is mostly a new printed shell. Desk Scout runs on AA batteries or a USB power bank. It's built for makers 14 and up, with enclosed gears and a low top speed.

The plan is to offer it as downloadable plans here on azdroidworks.com. Designed and test-printed in Arizona.

The name isn't final yet. Progress will show up in the build log.

Later: a bigger droid

Further down the road is a larger indoor telepresence robot, largely 3D-printed, built around safety (cliff detection, bump sensing and a hardware stop), and able to dock itself to charge. It doesn't have a name yet, and it comes after Desk Scout.

Abstract schematic placeholder. Not a photograph, and not a measured drawing.