Nokia 770 controlled robot

What's this?
It's a Nokia 770 hooked to a VEX Robotics kit (with a whole lot of add-ons) through the VEX Programming kit and my own USB Power Injector. Click the image. It's huge.

WOW! Does it work?
Of course not. But give me time. Lots of time - I'm not a programmer. In fact, I can't code my way out of a wet paper bag unless it's in bash, sed, and awk.

Details:
The programming kit has a "live mode" which is a combination of a Windows application and a special firmware on the robot. It monitors all sensors and controls all motors and servos. The company who makes the kit does NOT release the serial protocol for the robot so I'll have to find some way of doing it myself.

To-Do List:

• Finish the robot and resove my "tank treads work on carpet and rubber wheels work on tile but they both suck the other way around" issue.
  
• Build a power source to externally power the 770 for long durations.
• Sniff out the serial commands and sensor feedback and capture them.
• Find some way to read and interpret sensor data set over the serial port, pass commands to the serial port, and manage it all through a web browser.
• Install a capture card in my Gentoo boxand install a wireless camera on the robot. Feed the images to my web server.
  
• Find some way to pass commands from my web server through my box at home over wifi and to the 770.

The ones in bold will be the hardest - I know not where to begin. Wish me luck and offer advice in comments.

Links:
http://www.vexrobotics.com (redirects to Radio Shack for now) It's worth noting that ALL Vex kits and accessories are half off their original price.

http://www.vexlabs.com (check the Forums) I believe they're independent of VEX Robotics but sell products for the robot. I'd rather do business with them since they seem to know a LOT more about the Robotics system than any Radio Shack drone I've ever met. Plus they sell PNEUMATIC KITS and have an extensive question-and-answer help forum.

http://www.intelitek.com/ These people make the easyC programming kit for the VEX microcontroller. They will not, however, release an API for the "live mode" so it has to be hacked.

Forgive my absence

I've been a bit too busy with my day job to blog about the Nokia 770. I'm thinking of getting one of those UMPC/Origami toys and working on a Linux distro for it. They're not here and my discretionary income doesn't permit for a thousand dollar toy right now.

I am probably going to expand this blog to include other forms of portable computing when I get around to buying them. If Samsung wants to send me a Q1, I'll have lots of fun writing a comparison.

I got in a brief tiff with some other editors of Wikipedia on the UMPC Talk Page when I insisted the pre-launch media buzz was a "hype campaign." Others called it a "Launch campaign" but I disagree. Any other thoughts?