Here’s one
Gratifying to read how many of you are pi-heads (special shoutout to Gordon R. Durand, who uses one as his main desktop machine).
I know, I know…I understand that once you’re buying premade and troubleshot components, you’ve left the realm of tinkering with innovative machinery and landed right on putting together a Heathkit – but I must say, Pidog looks fun.
You have to supply the Pi, but it comes with an awful lot for the money – sound modules, light and movement sensors, pretty sweet looking servo motors. It must have an internet connection because it hooks into AI for facial recognition and coordination and stuff. Here’s a YouTube (complete with annoying robot narration).
I just realized I can’t have one because I don’t have enough clear desktop space to walk him on. I wonder what diabolical things a clever person could do with all those components, connected differently…?
Posted: August 11th, 2026 under personal.
Comments: 5
Comments
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: August 11, 2026, 9:25 pm
My Dad built our first color TV from a Heathkit 📺👍
Comment from Uncle AL
Time: August 11, 2026, 9:46 pm
@sweasel — You could go into Uncharted Territory and re-engineer piDog. Elongate the chassis, shorten the legs, rework the head and particularly the snout, and, Ta-Da!, you have created piStoat!
You could have a yard sign:
“Here There Be Cyber-Weasels”
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: August 11, 2026, 11:29 pm
connected differently.
Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much a working Bren Gun costs, let alone the other components?
Night Vision gear? Rubberized treads?
Sheesh.
Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: August 12, 2026, 3:35 pm
He has *one* RPi as his main system?
I have two.
Plus two for development. Plus one running a game emulator.
Plus one in the living room displaying the time, date, temperature (in C and F), and monitoring the status of the network link.
Plus a dead one in a box somewhere.
I doubt I will be purchasing any more RPis in the future however, as the prices are 2-3X from where they were before the RAM-apocalypse.
Comment from Mark Matis
Time: August 12, 2026, 6:06 pm
You could set up PiDog to monitor the chooks!!!
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