The Artificial Lab of the University of Zurich in Switzerland is currently developing a humanoid robot with a tendon-driven locomotion system, and just like your typical human offspring, they aim to finish the robot in only nine months.
The team behind Roboy—as the project in progress is called—began developing the robot in May of this year. Their goal is to be able to present a finished Roboy at the annual worldwide robotics fair, Robots On Tour, which will be held this year on March 8, 2013 in the University of Zurich.
To be able to finish Roboy before their self-imposed deadline, the team has decided to pool resources through crowd funding and private sponsorships. In exchange for contributions, each supporter will have his/her name or logo (if the supporter is a company or an institution) engraved on a part of Roboy. Other rewards await contributors, depending on the amount that is donated. Below is a full list (from the project’s web site) of the amounts of money one can donate and their corresponding incentives.
Those involved in the project have expressly declared in their web site that Roboy is an open source project, which means that “all expertise, ideas and inventions” do not belong exclusively to a specific project partner and that “every one will have the right to advance Roboy’s technologies.”
The financial goal set for the project is 500,000 Swiss francs. As of today, the project has reached more than half of its goal, as supporters have already contributed 293,950.