I’ve been thinking about getting back into humanoids after a long layoff, and I have some questions. Poppy looks promising, but it’s a major expense so I would like to understand what I am getting into. I already have a few each of M-28 and MX-64 from another project anyway…
Does poppy walk? I only see a video of someone holding its hands. I understand anyone could program (or try to program) their own gait, but I would like to know if there is a proven gait already available.
Can poppy carry a battery onboard? I only see tethers in the pictures/videos I have seen, and the design priority seems to be to make it look streamlined like a naked human without much consideration of payload.
Related to #2, is all the payload in the head? I expect the cameras to go there, but it looks like the computer and everything else goes there as well. Is it not top-heavy? Granted I have a massive cranium and still get around ok.
What is the minimum 3D printer size needed for all of the parts? Would a printer that does 20x20x20cm be ok? What about 15x15x15cm?
Is there much community around poppy? I understand that it’s a niche hobby due to the combination of very high cost and very high level of knowledge and skill required, but still there does not seem to be any community activity around the project. Or is there lots of activity but no one is blogging/posting/making videos about it?
You understand correctly, anyone can work on its own gait but for the moment no one really tried and therefore there is, as far as I know, no ready to use autnomous walking gait.
It is not provide by default, but some guy already did it. For example @thot in this project: Danse contemporaine - School of moon. He managed to include 4 battery packs in the legs.
There is indeed all the eletronic in the head but there is only a small embedded computer, few cables, a camera and stereo speakers. It is not “that” heavy.
Well, using a FDM 3D printer for Poppy Humanoid is a challenge as it has been design for being produced by SLS. It would take a really long time to do it. For the humanoid we use 3D manufacturers (sculpteo, i.materialise,…). Yet if you want to try, I think you will need at least a 20x20 plate for the legs…
From our point of view there is a very good and expanding community. Most important for us is the multidisciplinarity of the community, diversity helps to creativity and innovations. And we have a very wide range of activities from contemporary art to scientific research, and of course educators and makers.
Yet there is indeed few public feedback. Lot of people are working on their project and does not have (/take) time to report about it on the central channel (here). I guess the 1% rule applied also to us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%_rule_(Internet_culture).
Anyway, if you are looking for a humanoid project with a community, to my knowledge, the only other one is InMoov which has comparable community size.
I hope these short answers will help you decide whether or not the Poppy community can help you for your project
I’m surprised making it walk is not a high priority.
InMoov is probably not something I would take on, but the RoMeLa DARWIN OP project has had my attention for a while. DRAWIN lacks the “wow” factor of Poppy though. Cool robot.
At a minimum I’m still very interested in pypot. I’m going to continue to think about this for a while, will come back if I decide to get involved with Poppy.
