fred VS blossom-public

Thanks, that's very interesting, bookmarked! I found https://github.com/thomashiemstra/fred whilst searching, which also uses dynamixel motors, but very expensive ones.

It does look very smooth motion-wise though!

Another option: pybullet. If you just want to learn and you don't need a super high performant system go with python. As an example my code for controlling a simulated robot arm with pybullet my code

Thanks!

There is a guide available in the repo's wiki: https://github.com/hrc2/blossom-public/wiki

Our contributors' forks and extensions may also be useful:

https://github.com/interaction-lab/blossom-public

https://github.com/interaction-lab/BlossomNav

Regarding sourcing the parts, there are online services available to order 3D-printed parts as you would a PCB. The *.stl files are available in the wiki. Though with how accessible 3D printers have become — the well-supported Ender 3 is available for under $100 at Micro Center — you may want to consider taking up printing as a family activity.

Not an official startup, but I developed an open-source laser cut and crocheted social robot platform during grad school. We ran a few workshops for ~middle schoolers to build it and there are a few built by other researchers and roboticists out in the wild.

https://github.com/hrc2/blossom-public