Two days ago at the Code Conference Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich had a robotic companion by his side. Named Jimmy, the 3D printed bot is capable of walking, talking, moving its arms, dancing and even tweeting (@21crobot).
On Jimmy’s shoulders rests Intel’s vision of the future of robotics. Later this year, Intel will reportedly be making an open source robot kit with 3D printed parts available to consumers for around R17 000 and a researcher’s kit for R170 000.
The kit you buy will have all the parts you won’t be able to 3D print, like the motor, processor, wires and so forth, but the rest of the non-essential parts you will be able to get online.
The open source part of this project has us pretty excited. Jimmy is a low cost entry to robotics, and will be, for the most part, customizable to a large degree, meaning that you would be able to get Jimmy to do pretty much anything you can imagine.
Intel also said that they plan to offer an app market to ultimately expand your Jimmy’s capabilities.
Source: Engadget