RAPIRO is a cute, affordable, easy-to-assembled Raspberry Pi-powered humanoid robot kit that you can customize with a 3D printer. The name “RAPIRO” comes from RAspberry PI Robot. Designed by Shota Ishiwatari, RAPIRO comes with 12 servo motors, one for its neck, one in the waist, four for the two feet, and the final six for its two arms. Rapiro can walk with its feet, can grip a pen, and can turn its head and waist.
The Rapiro board is Arduino compatible and you can program it using the Arduino IDE. Your Rapiro could dance or sweep your desk if you program it to do so. RAPIRO is designed to mount the Raspberry Pi and Camera module in the head, but you have to buy them separately. Raspberry Pi costs around $50, it is a small sized computer that you can use to power your gadgets.
Additionally, you can add the Raspberry Pi Camera Module to take pictures. If you connect a wifi dongle or a bluetooth dongle to RAPIRO, you could control it with a smartphone. And if it heard your voice with USB microphone adapter, it could respond to your voice.
RAPIRO’s Kickstarter campaign was launched in June 2013, and raised £75,099 funding from 402 backers, nearly three times its original goal.
As promised in its Kickstarter campaign, Ishiwatari shared the 3D design files for the RAPIRO this week on Thingiverse, allowing everyone to download and customize their own RAPIRO with a 3D printer. The retail price for RAPIRO DIY model robot kit is $450.
Rapiro is very easy to assemble. All you need to build Rapiro is two screwdrivers, and to follow the step-by-step instructions here on RAPIRO’s site. Rapiro’s pre-programmed Rapiro board works right after assembling.
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