3D Printed DIY Robot Makes Debut in Romania
The creator estimates that more than 1,000 DIY robots have been made by people who followed his design.
A French designer has shown his humanoid DIY robot to the public for the first time.
The
life-size plastic model responded to English-language commands Friday,
picking up and dropping a small ball and swiveling its head to follow
people.
Designer Gael
Langevin unveiled the robot at a technology fair in Romania this week.
The idea developed from a prosthetics hand he made in 2011, the
first-ever made on a 3-D printer. The robot is made with a 3-D printer
and micro-cameras.
It
is hoped the robot will be used to help children in schools and
hospitals. If connected to the internet, it can answer a variety of
questions taken from Wikipedia.
Langevin admits his model, generically called InMoov, is not yet perfect.
"This
is a little bit like Geppetto building Pinocchio. You make a robot and
you send it in the world and you see what the others are going to do
with it," he said.
Children visiting the fair seemed thrilled.
"He
is awesome," said Adrian Margineanu, a student at Bucharest's elite St.
Sava school. "I like it a lot. I'm tempted to make one."
For
those who don't want to assemble it, InMoov offers a list of builders
in different countries. Langevin estimates that more than 1,000 DIY
robots have been made by people who followed his design.
His
robot can be programmed to speak English, Spanish, French, Russian and
Dutch. But Romanian graphic designer Paul Popescu, 35, has been
assembling his own robot and has plans to program it to speak Romanian.
A basic model costs about 1,500 euros ($1,665).
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