Some day soon we’ll be printing out our own life-size humanoid robot from home printers that, with minimal assembly, can be fully animated and respond to voice commands. Oh wait – that day is here. Introducing InMoov, an animated life sized robot with human features created by French sculptor and model maker Gael Langevin.
With a little bit of a DIY attitude, a little bit of money (about $800), some time on your hands, and a 3D printer InMoov can be yours just by pressing a ‘print’ button.
InMoov is a part of a new wave of open source robotics – a democratization of new, complex technologies to bring the power back to the people. Langevin’s creation started roughly a year ago and since has come to life with two arms, two hands, a torso, and a head. InMoov can repeat numbers, motion track, and even obey commands such as “rest,” “welcome,” and “surrender.”
All you need to build your own robot is to follow the instructions on Langevin’s website which serves as a how-to manual of sorts. There you will find what type of 3D printer you will need, along with materials and directions on where to put what. You’ll also need a lot of time on your hands, because speaking of hands, InMoov’s hands alone took 13 to 14 hours to create.
InMoov currently runs on code for MyRobotLab, an open-source Java service-based framework for robotics, and is designed with Blender, a type of animation software. Sounds technical? Langevin had no prior experience building robots so that should give novices hope that building InMoov might just be easier than you think.
One Response to “InMoov: The DIY Humanoid Robot You Can Print From Home”