POLYRO open source robot laughs in the face of a tight budget

With our country’s economy nosediving without much signs of recovery, it makes perfect sense for someone to come up with cost effective and affordable items – even where robots are concerned. POLYRO (oPen sOurce friendLY RObot) will make the most out of Willow Garage’s TurtleBot as its mobile base, where the TurtleBot in turn relies on a slew of low-cost components such as the iRobot Create and Microsoft Kinect sensor, letting it map and navigate its environment on its own without the need for human input.

With the POLYRO, it will deliver some personality to what is a cold machine, something that makes us humans desire to communicate more with a robot or perhaps feel more comfortable around it. Featuring a humanoid upper body, the POLYRO will be 99cm (3’3″) tall and tips the scales at a mere 8.6kg (19.5 lbs) – without its netbook, of course. With a couple of arms that feature three degrees of freedom each, it can nod its head while blink its stereoscopic eyes.

The total cost for building such a robot from scratch? We are looking at a sub-$2,000 Bills of Material (BOM) which ought to have DIY enthusiasts sit up and do more than just take notice.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: Robot, Robotics, Robots