Print Your Own Robby The Robot

When it comes to robots, few are as iconic as Robby. [Ogrinz Labs] has wanted to build one and even examined a real one up for auction to get high-res photos of it. He also combined his designs with some other open-source designs, and it looks good. He’s released his design as a Creative Commons-licensed set of STL files that you, in theory, could print. There are more details and instructions in the video below.

If you are looking for something quick to print for the weekend, this isn’t it. As you might expect, this is a lot to print. The creator admits, too, that it isn’t totally accurate. It has bigger feet, for example, so his feet can fit inside. There are a few other modifications made for different reasons, but only a hard-core Robby enthusiast would notice any of them.

In theory, you can wear the robot as a costume, but at the current height, it doesn’t look like that will work for the creator. Also, the joints that would make things rotate are still forward work, but he’s promised to provide updates.

Robby started out on Forbidden Planet and went on to appear in many other movies and TV shows. Much of the original body was vacuum-formed plastic (an early form of ABS known as Royalite).

Thanks to modern slicers, you can easily print the parts on your printer for later assembly, and the video shows you how. You can select what connectors are used, and while we like the dovetail mode for most of what we do, Robby’s clean surfaces need dowel connectors. We would be really excited to see someone take these files and make a working robot based on the design.

We’ve been watching this project for a while. If you are sorry you missed the auction of the original, you aren’t alone. But we couldn’t have afforded the $5,375,000 price tag anyway.

5 thoughts on “Print Your Own Robby The Robot

  1. Worst designed prop really, even with technology of the day they could have made a real robot that was much more functional.
    But I suppose they had to make it movable with a human operator and it wasn’t about engineering.
    And I guess it impressed the intended audience if people are still liking it and want to waste effort in recreating it.
    But to me its design is irksome.

    1. Thinking about it maybe the designer was a master psychologist and he made it big to be imposing but at the same time clumsy enough to make you feel it’s beatable and a bit of an oaf.

      N.B. I never watched this show, it was both before my time and in another region, so I only saw snippets.

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