This trash-handling robot contains a whopping 11 Arduino boards — April 20th, 2026 A single microcontroller can interface with many other components and handle several different tasks — that’s kind of the whole point. But microcontrollers do have limits and sometimes it makes sense to divvy up tasks to get a logical system architecture. That led Michael Rigsby to put a whopping 11 different Arduino boards into his trash-handling robot . This robot, called Zeno, responds to voice commands and can “see” its environment, all to accomplish the goal of collecting trash and depositing that trash into a specified receptacle. The user simply wakes Zeno with a voice command, then they can tell Zeno to follow them or grab trash from their hand. Zeno’s two DFRobot HuskyLens AI cameras enable it to recognize people and marked trash bins, while five VS53L0X ToF distance sensors help it avoid obstacles. It has two driven wheels actuated by geared DC motors, plus a pair of serial-controlled servo motors for the gripper.…