Enterprising hobbyists Tim Heath and Ryan Hickman have created cellbots — with names like Tankbot and Truckbot — that are simply robots powered by Android devices.

With just $30, an Android device, and a little creativity the pair were able to create the cellbots which process commands via telnet on PCs. The bots can move around in specified directions thanks to the built-in compass functionally on certain Android phones.

While actual robot activity is minimal, the focus of the project was to utilize Android phones as the brains of the robots. The pair hope to expand robot functionality and make the most of Android’s software. Wired speculates that:

“This means they could utilize every hardware and software component of an Android phone, programming the bot to avoid obstacles, recognize faces and voices, pinpoint its location and go places.”

Heath and Hickman have documented the entire project on their cellbots website, which means that with the right know-how you too could create your own Android-powered robot.

Watch a video of the robots with Android intelligence below:

Tags: android, cellbots, robots

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