Intel Readies "Jimmy" - A 3D-Printed 21st Century Robot

The inaugural Code Conference at Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. is a Mecca for tech companies and technologists alike. Apart from the Skype Translator and the Apple-Beats deal another product was in limelight. A cute, two-foot figure walked on to the stage, introduced itself and waved its arms. It was "Jimmy", a robot Intel had made using 3D-printed parts. Intel said that Jimmy is just a research robot, but plans to sell fully customizable, 3-D printable robot kit to market by the end of the year, with a consumer version starting around $1,600 (about INR 94 k) via 21stcenturyrobot.com. The kit will contain all the parts which can't be 3D-printed such as motors, batteries, processor, wires and more. The hardware design will be available for free and anyone with an access to a 3D printer could print it.

The Intel Jimmy consumer model runs on Intel Edison, a low cost computer on a chip (similar to an Arduino, but having much wider functionality). The range of tasks that Jimmy can perform is quite broad. It can sing, dance, tweet, translate and most importantly, deliver cold beers. The robot is open source, which will allow developers to create their own apps and users to download them so that they can run whatever they want on their machines. Intel also plans to start a marketplace for such apps and designs.

A more high-performance robot using the Intel Core i5 processor was also announced. Echoing its performance was its price, closer $16,000. The company hoped that the price of customisable robots would fall below $1,000 over next five years. Intel is looking to get ahead of its rivals in the wearable gadgets market along with slow developments in the tablet and smartphones market. If Jimmy is successful, Intel will definitely have a strong head start in the robotics department. Intel is slowly gaining a strong foothold in the embedded electronics market by launching the Arduino-compatible Galileo Development Board which has turned out to be popular amongst DIYers and weekend hobbyists and Intel's foray into open source robotics should be a welcome move.


Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on the inevitability of robotic technology said that the era of robotics has arrived, whether you like it or not. We couldn't agree more, do you? Let us know in the comments.

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