In the meanwhile and until i receive the board i've started to build the case environment for the robot to suit the efika board,plus battery,and additional stuff.

I'll be posting regularly the building process images and instructions just in case someone wants to ask about given solutions, or to give some advice about the building itself.

here is the project blog with some preliminary images:

EfikaBot Blog

I've got a similar project in line for robotics, care to collaborate software wise?

(other projects of mine include a mesh networking auto project, and an internet radio box...)

Sure!

Actually i left the source code aside until i finish the hardware, that shouldn't take too long.
My idea is to have an usb device that talks to the stepper motor controller and gets some sensors information.

I was thinking similarly, but instead was going to go with a secondary controller, basic stamp or brainstem (from acroname) to control low level stuff like movement. Higher end stuff like ethernet, video processing would be done on the efika... should be enough power

Hi.
If you want to use USB, but don't want to use a USB chip to get some I/O, you can check this out:
http://obdev.at/products/avrusb/index.html

Best regards,
Johan

_________________
Johan Dams, Genesi USA Inc.
Director, Software Engineering

Yep, I have a blog... PurpleAlienPlanet

@Jerrynrj:
Ouch, that's going to be quite expensive,and i was looking to implement most of the code on the efika side,and have a very basic usb->i/o controller for the motors and sensors.
Besides that i'm using spare parts from printers,old pcb's and everything that could be refurbished from broken stuff(printers,etc)
to allow for low cost implementation.(the less components it has,the higher autonomy with batteries.)
Also the space/weight of the whole unit shouln't be too big.

The idea is to be able of recyclying old computers/printers to implement cheap robots that can be sent to poor countries.
(controlling water installations pipe soldering,gas infrastructures etc).

@PurpleAlien:

Thanks for the url, will have a look at some point just in case it fits.

Do you think that the efika has enough horsepower to push the I/O as well as data processing?

i would like to push the board to its full capabilities in this regard.Failing to do so will result in a different approach to the matter.
After all this is about learning &trying to fit the board to any purpose.