Whos who in the robot DIY scene?

Lets talk here about some of the many websites and people who are really making a difference (usually by themselves without staff) by making new robot devices or adjusting some robots that are already on the market.

This has gotten much easier in the last few years due to 2 main reasons…the growth of the free robotics movement software found in the Open Source movement and the rapid rise in affordable 3 d printers and available free 3d printed robot parts.

.We are even seeing a handful of sites on Ebay for people who are selling DIY robot kits with open source files for both the programming code and the 3d printing code. Now there are specific rules about how to use Open Source software and how you are supposed to approach it if you plan to repackage it or develop a commercial project with it. We will explore this properly in a separate page soon in April 2021. We fully support the Open Source movement and greatly appreciate all the work that the volunteers have put into this project in its many forms.

Lets talk here about some of the many websites and people who are really making a difference by making new robot devices or adjusting some that are already on the market.

One of the most exciting movements came with the increased availability and affordability of the 3 d printer.

We now have dozens of sites which are selling 3d printing kits for robots of various sizes.

One of the first large size robot sites which offers the programming code and the 3 d printing instructions to build a full size humanoid robot is in France. The site is called InMOOV. http://www.inmoov.fr

One has to love one of the most realistic amputated human heads as the one of Greg Townley done by Edgar Wright for “the Worlds End”. The animatronics artist Mat Denton shows how the head was put together with all of the servos and programming to make it truly one of the most realistic skin and face demonstrations to see on Youtube.

The University of Tokyo has been invovled with robots for many years with the Kenta robot back in 2001.

Later they created the robot called Kengoro was made to stay cool by running water thru its skeletal frame.

Their Kenshiro robot was a child size robot with 160 artificial muscles allowing for 64 DOF. Its predecessors were Kojiro and Kenzoh.

The Kenshiro has 22 muscles in its neck 50 in its leg, 12 in its shoulders, 76 in its abdomen and the artificial muscles are made of pulleys.