I wanted to take this time to explain why I'm using a Smartphone (HTC One S) instead of something else. As I stated in an earlier log, one of the project goals was to re-familiarize myself with Android, but first a bit of backstory.

A few years ago (pre-Gingerbread), I got into Android programming for a job, and one of the things that intrigued me was trying to use my smartphone as a Robot Controller. It has all of the sensors, it has a screen to interact with and get debug information, and it even has a battery. But when I tried using it as such, I found it incredibly difficult, and found that the sensors were sub-par for what I wanted. Fast forward to now, and things have gotten much better. I'd like to flex my Android muscle so that I may use it later when needed.

On a related note, I've been using Linux for many years now, to the point where I put it and use it on as many things as possible. Normally I'd love to use Linux for this project, but there's a bit of a problem. Through a good amount of experience, I've found that all electronics have their own quirks and issues, Linux included. There's a very unique issue that I have to address with this Hovercraft setup in that if I want Linux, it needs to be small and light. There are a few options avaiable such as the Beagle Bone Black and Raspberry PI, but frankly, I would much prefer to use something that was designed to be used by typical consumers instead of hobbyists. To me, the difference is that by using a Smartphone, I only have to worry about the App, as all of the hardware and OS have been through a whole bunch of testing, whereas with a Raspberry PI and BBB, I'd have to add my own hardware, and run a variant of Linux I'm unfamiliar with, AND THEN run my application on top of it.

The goal is to eliminate as many variables from this build as possible, and from a hardware perspective, it's hard to trump Smartphone hardware. The tradeoff is that I likely won't get nearly as much performance out of it as compared to something else, but I've been burned in the past with silly hardware mistakes that I would prefer to avoid if possible.