Post Thumbnail

Engineer created an open companion robot from PVC pipes

Modern robots can be both expensive and super budget-friendly. And the new humanoid robot ALANA, created for just $70, demonstrates impressive capabilities. Previously unavailable in this price category. 3D printed, this robot not only waves its hand with human smoothness, but also supports dialogue, recognizes faces, and performs complex gestures.

The creator of the ALANA robot, engineer Shashwat Batish, deliberately abandoned some design elements. The robot has no head and legs. However, he equipped the device with functional arms with 6 degrees of freedom. These manipulators are capable of lifting objects weighing up to 500 grams. An impressive figure for a homemade construction.

The physical basis of the humanoid robot consists of a combination of lightweight plastic and inexpensive polyvinyl chloride pipes. Arduino and ESP32 microcontrollers are used for control. The robot gets power from a standard computer unit with 450 watts. Intellectual capabilities are provided by a local chatbot based on a language model, which processes voice commands.

Batish positions his creation not just as a technological demonstrator, but as a companion with character, capable of bringing any space to life. The entire project is built on principles of openness – complete documentation, source code, electrical schematics, and files for 3D printing are freely available on the Instructables platform.

Well, this humanoid robot perfectly demonstrates the potential of combining home 3D printing, affordable electronics, and open-source software. But it looks creepy, to be honest.

Autor: AIvengo
For 5 years I have been working with machine learning and artificial intelligence. And this field never ceases to amaze, inspire and interest me.

Latest News

Nvidia introduced Cosmos model family for robotics

Nvidia company introduced the Cosmos family of AI models. Which can fundamentally change the approach to creating robots and physical AI agents.

ChatGPT calls users "star seeds" from planet Lyra

It turns out ChatGPT can draw users into the world of scientifically unfounded and mystical theories.

AI music triggers stronger emotions than human music

Have you ever wondered why one melody gives you goosebumps while another leaves you indifferent? Scientists discovered something interesting. Music created by artificial intelligence triggers more intense emotional reactions in people than compositions written by humans.

GPT-5 was hacked in 24 hours

2 independent research companies NeuralTrust and SPLX discovered critical vulnerabilities in the security system of the new model just 24 hours after GPT-5's release. For comparison, Grok-4 was hacked in 2 days, making the GPT-5 case even more alarming.

Cloudflare blocked Perplexity for 6 million hidden requests per day

Cloudflare dealt a crushing blow to Perplexity AI, blocking the search startup's access to thousands of sites. The reason? Unprecedented scale hidden scanning of web resources despite explicit prohibitions from owners!