Meet the myBuddy 280 Pi, an adorable dual-armed Raspberry Pi-powered robot. The creator of the myBuddy, Elephant Robotics, calls it an "open-source educational essentials collaborative robot" for coding, AI, and robotics enthusiasts.
The little guy features two articulated arms (a first for Elephant Robotics) that can lift 260g of weight, rotate 165 degrees, and perform various tasks like waving hello or conducting a band. The ends of the arms can be fitted with little hands, suction pumps, and grippers. You know, robot stuff. The company's previous robots have featured single-armed creations that seem to lack the personality the myBuddy brings to the table.
The myBuddy is powered by a Raspberry Pi 4 with three ESP32 microcontroller modules. The arms run on a high-performance servo steering gear with six points of articulation.
The seven-inch touchscreen display has a pair of dual-200w pixel cameras that'll help teach the robot how to use visual sorting and facial recognition applications to have it do things like greet you when you arrive. Oh, and it'll show off several cute little facial expressions to give it some personality.
According to the video above, some applications of myBuddy include, but aren't limited to, programming it to play an instrument, wave a flag, and dribble a ball. There's even a way to control the arms remotely via a VR headset and controller.
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Some of the more wild things you can teach it include how to pet a robot cat, pour out candy, and even have it perform fun little dances. What you can do with the myBuddy seems contingent on your skills and creativity as a programmer.
The open-source robot works with Arduino, Python, C++, and Java programming languages. Elephant Robotics provides useful tools and software on its download page for users to experiment with.
The myBuddy 280 Pi starts at $1,699 or $1,749, depending on whether or not you want to add a pair of goofy hands to your new friends. Our colleagues at Tom's Hardware pointed out that myBuddy won't be showing up on Amazon for the next few months because of limited supply. Elephant Robotics also makes a bionic pet cat if you're looking for more robotic companions of the four-legged variety.
