For most hobbyists, building a robot mostly involves buying a robot and assembling it and then (if that first part doesn’t make you hate robots) programming it to do stuff. Designing your own robot from scratch is much more difficult, especially if it’s a robot that has legs that are supposed to do something practical. ETH Zurich, in collaboration with Disney Research and CMU, has developed “an interactive design system that allows casual users to quickly create 3D-printable robotic creatures.” From walking bipeds to salamanders with actuated spines to quintapeds (that’s a thing, right?), the software does all of the hard work for you, and with just a 3D printer and some servos, you can design robots that are exactly as bizarre as you want them to be.
via IEEE Spectrum
Image: Disney Research
