Chives Reloaded - My New and Improved Butler Robot

I am going to redo Chives , my butler robot and I am going to extensively document the building process.

I'm gonna take him apart and build him up in a new design.

The old chives looked like this


It boasted voice commands, remote web control , web cam used in image processing , arm to pour a drink ( not pictured since its already taken apart for the new design), and manual drive with a joystick. Oh yeah , and a minifridge that kept drinks cool .

The new Chives will be 100 times better . I'm planning for HUGE advancements, I'm talking about more sonar sensors, three microphones to track direction of sound, better robotic arm for pouring , cooler design, and anything else that you guys suggest that is feasible. all of this in addition to the old features.

Here is the basic design for Chives :

It will follow that design , and that after I have that basic design all finished I will attach my robot arm , some sensors, etc. So when its done it will resemble that CAD .

So far I've finished improving the chassis , making it more secure. Now I'm waiting for some pieces of wood and plexiglas to close up the batteries and relay system ( which I made). Hopefully I'll be done by the end of the week with the chassis.



The album is located here
http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj202/erobot/Chives%20Reloaded/Chassis/

This will be the official forum thread for improvements to Chives, I'm abandoning any other thread that dealt with this.
My intention is to enter Chives in the instructables robot contest , but I am not sure if I have enough time since I only finish exams a week before the deadline.

Written documentation will be posted next week or the week after.

Feedback is appreciated.

,Eric