Endurance is a Russian robotics startup company that recently opened an office in the US (Naples, Florida) and has started to distribute their robot DIY SelfieBot for free. With claims that they want to help young people, especially students to jump into robotics, Endurance is bringing innovation to high school and colleges.
George Fomitchev – founder of the startup – says that they have made all source codes and schematics available so any student can reproduce the DIY SelfieBot on campus or at home. Endurance tries to make sharing knowledge and experience as simple as possible. Their idea is to make robots and robotics technology popular among software and mechanical engineers. SelfieBot is a basic (stationary) telepresence robot that can be built yourself with prepared tutorials and guidance. DIY SelfieBot is a tool that turns your mobile device into a smart machine transforming it into a mobile driven robot.
George Fomitchev wants students to have better access to more advanced tools in order to make their own robotics, and it is hard to find practical open source code that can be done on a 3D printer. He wants to bring consumer robots to our daily life.
The differences between the self built and commercial versions of a SelfieBot are not that huge. The DIY version is very simple to assemble and many of the trickier elements are excluded from the final hardware design. Developing a SelfieBot will not require a lot of time or special knowledge.
It is also distributed under a creative commons license, which means that anyone can make it. Under this strategy the company is planning to bring enthusiasts and hobbyists together around this technology. It means that people can share their ideas, vision and thoughts on how to make it better.
George would like to get at least 20-25 colleges getting ready to begin assembling SelfieBot starting fall 2016 and he said that he is in a process of negotiation with colleges in CA right now. Endurance’s team will be available to help control, give advice and monitor the progress of students that are making DIY SelfieBot. They are also inviting students for a summer internship program.
Endurance is not selling any parts for the construction of a SelfieBot. Everything that might be needed is listed on their website, and they are all available on Ebay and Amazon. Endurance are considering the convenience of a DIY SelfieBot Kit where you can buy all parts in one box.
Endurance’s mission: “is to educate and encourage students and others by creating a friendly robotics network and to empower them by providing the skills necessary to create and develop their own robots that will help people in the field of Education.”
