“When you’re getting started in robotics, building a self-balancing bot is a rite of passage. Mine is called EddiePlus. He’s rechargeable, Wi-Fi-enabled, and remote controlled, and he’s an open source project, so anyone can build him in a weekend or two. He can even be navigated completely out of sight, for 1 hour of drive time, via an FPV (first-person view) camera. I built my first Eddie just for fun and as an excuse to put my Intel Edison Compute Module to good use. As a customer eagerly awaiting the Edison release, I was excited to have a project planned before my order arrived. The Edison’s low power draw and tiny footprint make it a great fit for small, battery-powered projects that need a lot of processing power. I was also excited to try SparkFun’s Edison Blocks — modular boards that stack onto the Edison to provide functions like motor control and power management.”