Make a cute useless robot with ESP32

Introduction

After defending his master’s thesis, the author used his free time to create a robot he had always wanted to make – a cute and useless robot.

The useless robot principle is a motor connected to a switch, controlled by a logic gate. When the switch is pushed to “on”, the robot activates the motor and uses a cleverly designed lever to push the switch back to the “off” position. This toy is very common and many people have made it and uploaded it to YouTube.

The author challenges himself to make a technological product every year, and this year he decided to make this complex project – a cute useless robot. This robot refers to the design of Japanese maker Kairoshi, with an expression display based on LED matrix modules and an internal stepper motor, which can respond cutely to user input.

Materials and steps

• The main parts needed include 3D printed housing, laser cut black acrylic sheet, stepper motor, servo motor, PCB board, LED matrix module, ESP32E, etc.
• The production process includes printing PCB

• Soldering and assembling the display module

• Install switch and weld driver board

• Assemble MCU board and perform functional testing

• 3D printing robot body, laser cutting shell, firmware burning, etc.

Precautions

The material cost of making this robot is relatively high, close to the price of a brand new laptop. In addition, if you have no soldering experience, the overall cost may be higher because PCB assembly is also involved.

Finish

Once completed, the robot can be controlled via WiFi, or run in automatic mode, showing different emotions and reactions. I hope you enjoy this project.

For more details, see the author’s GitHub repository:https://github.com/tobychui/Kawaii-Useless-Robot

Project link: https://www.instructables.com/Kawaii-Useless-Robot-2024-Edition/

Project author: tobychui