This workshop was made in collaboration with Naba Milan inside the "Triennale di Milano" garden and lasted one week.

I worked with Emanuele Lomello and we taught 15 students Robotics, 3D Printing, Electronics and Interaction Design.

Our project was based on the Open Source InMoov Robot and the basic idea behind our project is that we wanted to insert what we have been teaching during the Naba courses.

At the beginning of the workshop we showed the students how to 3D print the robot’s parts and how to modify them for our project using CAD, then we started testing all the 3D printable materials to find the perfect one for our purpose. At the end we found out that the polystyrene was what we needed, it was solid, very light and a bit flexible when needed.

Then we proceeded with the electronics, we modified some High Torque Servos and we used them to move the head, the mouth, the eyes, the 2 axis of the shoulders, the elbows and the hands. Then we connected them to Arduino, showing the students how to create a simple board to power the servos with enough power.

Then it came to the software part. We wrote a firmware for Arduino that let us communicate easily via serial port, then we tested if everything worked with a simple MaxMsp patcher, then we started coding in Unity. Using this 3D engine, it was easier for the students to approach complex behaviours like the inverse kinematics math needed to move the arms. Moreover it is easier to connect our “Robot Brain" to different types of sensors, we made experiments of hand tracking with the Leap Motion, we played with motion capture using Microsoft Kinect and we also tried to control it with the Myo Controller.

I had a really great time doing this workshop, it was fun, the students were enthusiast and worked night and day to complete the project. The very last afternoon was the major moment of experimentation with something they all built together and it was extremely satisfying, both for me and for them.