After a run of wheeled and legged walkers, I wanted something that looked more like an animal. Something with four legs that could walk, dance, maybe even hop. I found MiniKame, an open-source quadruped designed by Javier Isabel back in 2016. 0:00 /0:02 1× We built the newer Kame32 version, which swaps in an ESP32 and uses cheap SG90/MG90s servos instead of the expensive high-voltage servos from the original. The kids named it Kame — which, as they wer

This is part 2 of our adventures to build Strandbeests, large and small. After building the first mini Strandbeest, we wanted more. The mini was fast and fun, but its 3D-printed linkages kept jamming under load. We wanted something sturdier that the kids could actually use — not just chase across the living room floor. Lucky for us, Josh-3D, a maker on MakerWorld, designed an excellent Strandbeest-inspired walker with a flat top to carry stuff. The kids immediately called it "the walking table

This was my third robot project with the kids. Inspired by a Mark Rober video about a rock-paper-scissors robot that never loses, my kids wanted a robot hand that would never win against them. After researching all the 3D-printable, easy-to-assemble robot hands out there, I decided to build the beautifully designed InMoov Hand by Gael Langevin. The hand is actuated by six MG996R hobby servos and fishing line. I used an ESP32-C3 SuperMini connected to a PCA9685 PWM servo driver to control the s

Strandbeests are moving mechanical sculptures created by Theo Jansen with mesmerizing leg movements that organically flow with the wind. The beauty of their leg design and construction has inspired many to build robot walkers with similar gaits. I've always wanted to build a Strandbeest robot, and after trying many projects on MakerWorld and Printables, I've come across two that I can recommend after building them with my kids. This post covers the first. The first is a design by Turkish maker

Created by Camilo Parra Palacio in 2016, Otto DIY is a minimalist bipedal robot that chirps and dances its way into your heart. Though Otto started its as a bipedal robot, the internet community has remixed the design as a wheeled robot, a quadruped, a tank, a humanoid, and countless characters. My kids saw Otto while we were browsing Printables together and immediately asked me to make it. This was our second robot with a "brain" that the kids can program and that can react to its environment

Update 2020: I learned about Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) by trying to color old photos using machine learning. I applied my learnings later at AWS helping the team make GANs easy to understand and tune for developers making music with AWS DeepComposer. With this project, I also gained a deep understanding of AWS SageMaker. Original Post: I have always been fascinated by the magical ability of photography to transport us back in time. I'm fortunate enough to have family albums dating