In early 2013, the University of Zurich’s Artificial Intelligence Lab started work on the next generation of robotics. Its vision was to create a small robot boy that perfectly replicated how the human body works by creating joints that more accurately mimic muscles through springs instead of expensive hydraulic motors. Well, Roboy is now mostly finished and is making the rounds.
In a video from MobileGeeks, we get a really good look at what appears to be a near final build of Roboy. He still can’t walk, but he can recover from being pushed. The creators call this passive recovery and it’s very similar to how we recover when being pushed slightly to the side.
One of the more interesting aspects of Roboy is that he was primarily built with 3D printed parts. That will play an important role in Roboy’s future as the source files for Roboy are open source. In other words, anybody can print their own Roboy. The team hopes this will help advance development as other engineers make their own tweaks to the design and software of Roboy.
While you may want to start building your own Roboy today, the price might be a bit on the prohibitive side. The project lead says Roboy costs about €200,000 ($277,220 USD) to build. While the 3D printed parts probably aren’t all that expensive, the inner workings that aren’t plastic probably cost a pretty penny.
Still, it might be worth it as Roboy is the only robot I know of that can blush. It’s kind of adorable.
[h/t: 3ders]
Image via Mobilegeeks.de/YouTube