Enough with the chickens already, let’s build a robot army!

Alright, Agent P — I see that look. Yes, there have been a lot of chicken posts lately. I am aware. I have been aware for some time. Even Evil Scientists go through phases, and mine apparently involved poultry. But that chapter is closed. We are moving on to bigger things.

Specifically: a robot army.

Ten thousand strong. Enough to take over the entire Tri-State Area in one decisive, well-coordinated sweep. I have had great success with my prototype, and the design is solid. There is just one small issue.

The Arduino Problem

The prototype runs on off-the-shelf Arduinos. Wonderful little boards. Genuinely love them. They cost about $40 each.

Ten thousand robots. Forty dollars each. That is $400,000 in Arduinos alone — before I have purchased a single servo, wheel, chassis, or world-domination-themed decal. And look, the alimony from my ex-wife is generous, I will grant her that, but even Charlene’s settlement does not cover a $400,000 microcontroller bill. That is not an Evil Scientist budget, that is a small nation’s infrastructure budget.

So I did what any resourceful Evil Scientist would do: I looked for a cheaper way.

The $8 Solution

Turns out, you can build your own Arduino-compatible circuit for about $8 a unit. Eight dollars. That is a savings of $32 per robot, which across ten thousand units works out to $320,000. That is a lot of pastrami on rye, let me tell you.

Before committing to soldering ten thousand of anything, however, I decided to build a breadboard version first — just to prove I could do it before I made it permanent. Found another excellent Instructable with step-by-step instructions and even a printable template to lay over the breadboard.

This is where things got a little… characterful.

A Series of Minor Setbacks

The template did not line up exactly with the breadboard. Not by a lot — but enough to be annoying. I also discovered I was completely out of normal-length jumper wires and had nothing but the very long ones, which resulted in a wiring layout that was technically functional and visually catastrophic. And THEN I realized I could not find my 16MHz crystals anywhere. Not in the lab, not in the supply bins, not in that drawer where things go and are never seen again.

So I ordered new crystals from Amazon (thank goodness for Prime — Evil waits for no one, but two-day shipping is acceptable) and a 140-piece jumper wire kit so this never happens again.

Tuesday, we fire this thing up and find out how long it runs before it blows up.

I am cautiously optimistic.

– Doof, Evil Scientist and Budget-Conscious Robot Army General, Tri-State Area