USB controlled robot cart?

Question

Do it yourself

Such a bad project has ripened. We constantly ride to the client, there are not enough video conferences and the phone, I want semi-informal communication. We are thinking of putting the tablet on wheels, presumably Win RT with Wifi, and remotely control it via conference calls (Lync) and TCP/IP. You want to control the wheels from the same tablet. I also want autonomy, i.e. with the ability to plug in for recharging.
Experience in programming to dope, but with iron is very tight. The soldering iron was used only as a means of negotiations. I would like not to bother and either buy a ready-made kit, or order an assembly from someone. Ready for figures of the order of $ 500-800 with consumables, without conference. equipment and tablet. The office on which to ride is flat, about 10,000 sq. m. with tables and walls, but practically without doors.
Please advise.

Answer 1

If you are not going to automate completely, then you can take a breadboard with STM32F4xx for 15 bucks on Alibaba, for ~ 100 bucks - a stepper control unit (for 5 engines), the steppers themselves cost from ~ 10 bucks (large batch) + you will also need a power supply from a twelve-volt battery (10..30 bucks), recharging (10 bucks) and the battery itself (20 bucks).
Connect the breadboard to the tablet via USB. On the GPIO hang the stepper control. There is still a lot of contacts for further hanging with sensors up to full automation.

Answer 2

We also looked at this: www.bizoner.com/arduino-robot-platform-4wd-chassiss-robotics-kit-ready-to-run-p-221.html
There are doubts that the tablet will pull.

Answer 3

a simple example of a telepresence robot for 500 bucks. Instead of a crate, you can take any other iRobot - most models have a control port removed .