lIllI is a humanoid robot. She comes as a flat packed construction kit made from laser cut wood. She is made using standardized parts that should be available anywhere in the world.

lIllI is open source and can be downloaded from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6945461.

You can find detailed instructions for building the kit on https://www.instructables.com/member/PersonalRobotics/instructables/

lIllI is 78 cm tall with human proportions. Her Head has room for a single-board computer, like the Raspberry pi or the Nvidia Jetson, but she also works with micro-controllers like Arduino or the ESP32.
She has a RPi camera for image recognition and two 8x8 LED displays for eyes for social interaction. There is enough room for power converters, speakers and additional sensors in her head and body.

lIllI can be used for:

• basic programming (Python, Java, C, etc)
• ROS/ROS2
• Myrobotlab (the Inmoov software)
• Nvidia Robotics and AI
• AI programming.
• Human machine interaction
• YOUR SPECIAL PROJECT!

She is perfect for students and school projects that want to do social robotics.

Background When starting to learn robotics and Machine learning, one of the big hurdles is to find a real-life robot to work with. Professional robots tend to be quite expensive, and DIY solutions are often very limited as they are custom built around certain hardware that might not be available or suitable for your project without extensive tweaking. Also, most DIY robots are 3D printed, which is inefficient and environmentally questionable. To combat plastic pollution, we decided to switch to the oldest construction material known to man: wood.

Wood has many benefits compared to plastic:

• It is incredibly tough
• It does not crack or melt when drilled or cut
• It is environmentally friendly and non-toxic
• It can be easily fixed with glue or fillers
• It can be painted, oiled or stained
• It just looks awesome!

To finish the build, you need some additional components. These should be chosen according to your needs and budget. For example: If you are on a tight budget, you could go for the cheapest servo motors, as they can be had for just a few Euros a piece. If, however, you want to experiment with walking and lifting, you could get powerful ones and adjust your power source accordingly. The parts can be easily painted using a spray can. Just make sure you spray the parts before you break the kit apart.

Note: The shipment contains the laser cut beech plywood. To finish the build you need to source the electronics and fasteners separately. For this reason, I have used standardized components for the structural parts. You should be able to get these locally or from your favorite online store anywhere in the world.
This way your build will be a personalized robot. Just the way you want it. And it also cuts down on transportation costs and environmental impact. Reducing storage and packaging has made it possible to provide free shipping inside the EU.

Bill of materials

To control the robot, you need a micro-controller or computer with i2c. Most micro-controllers like Arduino and computers with GPIO do this.

Minimal requirements to finish the build

Recommended Electronics

You will need a power source, like an old ATX PSU, batteries or solar cells. Be inventive.

Frequently asked Questions

Can she walk? Short answer: No. Walking is hard to program and also very demanding on the hardware design. However, if you invest a lot of time and effort, who knows. Go for it. You would probably need to redesign the hips and use strong Servos. Let me know. Good luck!

Do you sell full kits? No.I try to keep prices low and quality consistent by just selling the parts I actually manufacture. Reselling electronics would draw my attention away from what I am passionate about, which is building robots. Having one simple product makes this possible.

We are a company selling add your product here, and we would like to resell or license your robot. That is cool. Send me a message with a polite and reasonable offer, and we can talk.

Why is she called lIllI? While designing the robot I asked my daughter what to name it and she immediately replied "Lilli". I then changed the letters to uppercase/lowercase to make it resemble a bar code, and it just stuck.