Awww, crap.
I’ve started designing and working on a set of miniature modular swarm bots. MEAGan (short for Miniature Expandable Autonomous Golem) will be pretty much like any other design out there, with one difference — instead of each bot having a predefined, specialized purpose, they will all be identical with the exception of “backpack modules” which will work with any bot. This will allow me to save a lot of money on construction — instead of having to build many different bots to cover all posibilities as I come up with them, I’ll only need a half dozen or so.
I have the base-unit design worked out — it’s just a simple microcontroller controlling two servos and an antenna-style bump sensor. Because low cost is one of the reasons for this design, and because the units will be small enough that having load-bearing members isn’t really an issue, I decided to build the chassis out of Mecano and use Lego tank-treads for the drive train (the gearboxes/motors were taken from a WowWee RoboPet that I purchased for $5 from a thrift store — fully functional, except it came with no remote so all it would do is sit there and make noises every once in a while to ensure I knew it was still there). Unfortunately, as I went to the local Big Box of Evilness store (read: Wal-Mart) I came to a somewhat frightening realization — Apparently toys which encourage creativity such as Lego, Mecano, and even building blocks, are no longer considered “popular”, or “cool” enough to sit on a shelf beside the latest flavor of the week. This is of special concern, because my fiance and I have lately spent a lot of time discussing how we are going to raise our as-yet-conceptual children (to anyone who might read this and panic — family members etc. — don’t worry, they are VERY conceptual — we don’t want kids until after Stevie is done her masters, so probably at least six years).