The current robotics drive seems like it’s confined to companies with budgets, but it doesn’t have to be. All you need to get involved is a little programming know-how, a 3D printer… and about R41,000 for additional parts.
A new project released on Hugging Face will handle most of the work, eventually leaving you with your very own pair of robotic legs to play with. It’s not really for having lying around the home, though. The project’s creators have designed the LeRobot Humanoid for more scientific endeavours. Still, if you have the cash and hardware, you can just… make a pair. Nobody will stop you.
Feeling a bit robotic
This isn’t the first project of its type we’ve seen. The Berkeley Humanoid Lite can be downloaded and built, if you like. That one is a complete humanoid, but the parts list will run you around R100,000. The LeRobot Humanoid is fairly complete, even if it’s just a pair of legs. The setup consists of the 3D printer files, a parts list made up of accessible components, and even the software you need to get it all going.
According to its creators, the LeRobot is “an open humanoid platform that is affordable enough to reproduce, simple enough to modify, and complete enough to support real robot-learning experiments.” The included calibration and control tools and training environments set this one apart from other projects. It would work as a high-end STEM school project, perhaps, or something for serious hobbyists.
It’s certainly cheaper to make your own setup right now, though a decent, fully-coded humanoid isn’t far off from the Berkeley project’s price tag. This pair of robotic legs, though, is less than a quarter of what you’d pay for Unitree’s G1. The LeRobot includes the added benefit that you might learn something. All you have to do is start the various downloads. And then raise about forty grand.
