Lil’bot, the little robot that could
The Lil'Bot robotics project aims to build a low-cost, open-source, balancing robot that is easy to program called, of course, Lil'Bot.
In order to fund this robotics project, its creator Chris Hakim started a crowdfunding program using Kickstarter. To fund the Lil'Bot project he needs $ 15.000,- of which he already has collected $14.050,- with still 12 days to go.
The Lil'Bot project started when he promised his eight-year-old son to build a small balancing robot that he could program himself. Soon after he started building, the project turned out to be much more than he originally had planned.
About Lil'Bot
To teach children the basic robot programming concepts, Chris uses a visual programming language which looks like assembling Lego bricks, called "Lil-Blocks".
Showing Emotions
The Lil’bot robot is able to express some basic emotions through an optional emoticon-like LED display called “EmoShield”. Some of these emotions are: amusement, being cool, crying, being naughty, neutral, sarcastic, smiling, and sad.
The EmoShield allows your Lil'BOt to tell you how it feels!
Goals
If this project goes well, Chris plans to develope more shields for th Lil’Bot. Although he is not promising that these things will ever be made, these are the ones he has in mind:
Planning
Lil’Bot has especially been designed to make it easy to manufacture. The manufacturing plan allows one month as buffer and if all goes well, all assembled Lil'Bots could be shipped as early as mid- to late August.
Kickstarter
Kickstarter enables people to crowdfund their projects by setting up a donation scheme with a goal and a time limit. In order to actually receive the donated money the person creating the project has to work hard to motivate people to donate.
If, at the end of the timelimit the minimum funding has not been reached, the project does not receive any money and the people who donated (the "Backers") receive a refund. The idea is to keep the project creators motivated.
Help Chris
You can help Chris reaching his goal to develop Lil'Bot by going to Kickstarter and donate as little as 1,- ! Robotics Today believes in this project and already backed his project. What about you ?