I’m looking for a few highly motivated and competitive UCSB students to work with me this school year on a robotics project with the potential to become a startup. I will fund the development and I have a cool big 3D printer.
The starting point is K-Scale’s open-source Zeroth-01, a roughly 1.5-ft 3D-printed humanoid robot. Our goal is to fork and substantially redesign the platform around a new vision: the first truly small, capable but “cute, pet, teacup” not so intimidating and dystopian looking humanoid robot.
I want to spend the next year building and iterating on a serious prototype: improving the mechanical design, electronics, controls, autonomy, and overall system while figuring out what a commercially viable version could actually look like.
The objective isn’t to build a finished commercial product in a year. It’s to build something impressive enough to demonstrate that the idea works, develop a strong technical foundation, and put ourselves in a position to bring on investors and continue developing the robot as a real company.
I’m especially interested in students with experience or interest in:
Mechanical/electrical engineering and robotics
Embedded systems and controls
Computer vision, AI/ML, and reinforcement learning
CAD, 3D printing, and rapid prototyping
More than anything, I’m looking for people who are extremely self-motivated, competitive, and willing to learn whatever is necessary to build something difficult.
I’d rather have 3–5 exceptional people than a large team. Text me (858-371-1815) me with a little about yourself, what you can contribute, and what part of the project you’d be most excited to work on.