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Always wanted a robot: why not DIY?

French sculptor open-sources 3D printed robot design

If you have access to a basic 3D printer, around $US800 in spare cash and like fooling around with Arduino, why not make a robot?

We're not tilting at windmills here, because designs for the body parts are available thanks to an open source project from French sculptor Gael Langevin. His year-long project, which he calls InMoov, isn’t yet complete – if you print your own InMoov, you’ll find it lacks legs.

However, the head, torso, hand and arm designs are finished. You’ll have to add your own motors and electronics. Even that’s not so daunting, with two Arduino Uno units to handle motor control; twenty hobby store-level servos, fishing line, ABS filament, and batteries.

Langevin used Myrobotlab to program InMoov.

The designs, which Langevin created in Blender, are available at Thingiverse. Langevin has also posted a number of videos at YouTube, like this one:

While InMoov strikes Vulture South as looking somewhere between a sadly-incomplete C-3PO and creepy, Langevin told CNN he sees InMoov as the kind of project a family could work on as a project for weekends. More videos are listed here and assembly instructions are here. ®

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