We’re starting to see products using Intel’s RealSense technology (e.g. the Naked 3D Scanner) and we’re betting that we’ll see a lot more throughout the year. Intel, naturally, wants to hasten the process and what better way to do that than to encourage home tinkerers to experiment with the tech in their upcoming projects? The Intel RealSense Robotic Development Kit is the company’s attempt to make that happen.
No, they didn’t quite make a robot that you can program and customize like Willow Garage did a while back. Instead, it’s a kit consisting of a camera and a development board that Intel describes as a combo for bridging “the gap between rapid prototyping and productization.” Basically, it’s meant to provide makers with powerful building blocks for robotic and technological applications, so you can finally put together that Godzilla robot you’ve been meaning to build to take over the world. Or something like that.
The Intel RealSense Robotic Development Kit consists of the outfit’s RealSense 200 Camera and a development board similar in size to the Raspberry Pi. Designed to provide decent computing power, it comes with a quad-core Intel Atom x5 CPU, Intel HD 400 graphics, and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, with built-in support for Ubuntu, although it should easily handle Windows, Android, and other Ubuntu flavors since this is just a standard Atom-based SoC. It comes with multiple built-in interfaces (USB 2, USB 3, Ethernet, eDP, CSI, HDMI, and I2S audio), along with a 40-pin general purpose bus for custom additions.
Slated to ship in June, the Intel RealSense Robotic Development Kit is priced at $249.99.