Joint effort in the construction of a Meccanoid XL personal robot 2.0

© R&D

As already mentioned in one of the previous daily images, since September last year we are official member of the Innovation Cluster Drachten (ICD, high tech materials). To welcome us, the president gave us a very nice present: a Meccanoid XL personal robot 2.0. This robot is the size of a 10 - 11 years old child (around 1.40 m), is provided with enhanced voice recognition, and communicates with smart devices by Bluetooth wireless technology with a free app for Android and iOS. However, this robot consisted of 1020 parts and had to be built and programmed by ourselves.

A few months ago, the people of the R&D department have been encouraged to submit an idea for the construction of this Meccanoid XL personal robot 2.0. Bas van der Tol, Andre Gunst and Arthur Coolen of the R&D department and Jeremy Hartwood and Andre Offringa of the Astronomy Group, together with their children in the age of 10 - 13, submitted the winning idea: to program the robot as a.o. greeter/host/guide for ASTRON open days and visitor tours.

Last week, the team enthusiastically started with this challenge. Building the robot appeared to be a really good team effort. The kids (and adults) collaborated effectively. A lot of the work was done in parallel, such that the mechanical building of the robot could be finished within an afternoon. Furthermore, the kids had a lot of fun as well and are eagerly waiting for the next phase: programming the robot. This will be planned soon.

We will keep you informed on the final result!