Show HN: I was reintroduced to computers: Raspberry Pi

Summary

Wow, half a year has passed since my last blog. I have to admit, during this period I was a bit disconnected from the physical AI world. I transitioned to a different team at work after their two data scientists were reassigned to other teams, and I had to ramp up quickly to take over their projects. We were mainly working on fine-tuning BERT but it was a complicated project. There were days I’d wake up at 7 am to check model results, and nights when I kept coding until it was far too late. But now the projects are in a stable phase (mostly maintenance and a few experiments) so I finally have time to think about physical AI again. We have a problem at home My wife and I are both a bit paranoid when it comes to our house. As soon as we leave, we immediately start worrying about things like: Is the refrigerator door closed properly? Did we feed the cat? Is the cat okay? Did we leave a window open? (The cat could escape.) Did we leave the iron plugged in? So what if we can control a car with our phone and see what’s around, even if we are not at home? I know this might not be an ‘AI’ project, but it could serve as the foundation for a platform that can later support AI projects. If we want to explore AI in manipulation and navigation, we have to start somewhere. But most importantly, I want to play with an RC car without being judged. I bought this thing because it was on sale You might have noticed that in previous blogs I mentioned Arduino and ESP32 as options. While it’s perfectly possible to use them, I bought a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W without really knowing what it was because it was on sale. I wanted to explore it. And turns out, having a full computer with an OS is much more fun than using a microcontroller, especially if you’re not concerned with efficiency for now. After all, you’re working with a full Linux computer that happens to fit in your palm and costs $15 ($10 if you are lucky like me). 2WD kit For 5 dollars, you can get a 2wd car kit: This kit has a fra...