Roboy, a creation of the University of Zurich’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, is being developed in the same nine months as a human baby develops. The development of Roboy began in June of 2012, and if everything goes according to plan, he will make his debut at the Robots on Tour exhibition in Zurich this coming March.
The creators are also looking to raise money through crowdfunding by offering perks like having a brand or name printed on Roboy for anything from 27 to 50,000 Swiss francs ($27 to $55,000). Roboy is a prototype for a future mass-produced robot that can provide live-in assistance to the elderly and others who need it.
Humanoid designs aren’t always the ideal option when it comes to creating a robot; specialised, nonhuman shapes are often more successful, and the robot may slip into the unsettling, quasi-human “uncanny valley” if it looks too much like a human.
Roboy is very similar to humans
Roboy is similar to many other service robots in that he is humanoid and must navigate human gender norms. However, in this study, experts are looking at more than simply how a humanoid moves. Instead of the mechanical “pop” and “lock” of many robots,
It is being created with a system of artificial “tendons” to provide it more natural mobility. Below, you can see that the arms are beginning to move, but they won’t be fully functional for another month. Additionally, the robot will have been developed in nine months, it is based on Ecce, an older anthropomorphic robot with a tendon system, and it is designed to use the same principles.
Roboy, in contrast to Ecce, will be more cartoonish; the team behind the project has even drawn out a face that looks nothing like the one in the PDF brochure. A time will come when the skeleton is likewise enveloped in “soft skin.”
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