Learn more about the project Learn more about the project Gregorio, Rodrigo and Vera were driven by a shared desire to make the tech affordable and accessible. That’s why they created Botzo using as many open- source hardware and software solutions as they could. The team leveraged Arduino processors for real-time processing in a 2-Degree-of-Freedom (2- DoF) system. Gait planning and inverse kinematics for realistic movement, as well as 3-D printing to produce hardware, came together in a remote- controllable result. The project was conceived and developed with the support of the IE Robotics & AI Lab. For the student team, it proved an ideal opportunity to put the theoretical knowledge they’d gained in the program into practice. A lot of trial and error—and plenty of effective collaboration between the students’ different specialties—brought the digital canine to life. “Working on Botzo has been a journey of discovery. We’ve grown in our understanding of robotics, from the nuts and bolts of hardware to the intricacies of inverse kinematics and ROS,” said team member Gregorio Orlando. And they’re just getting started: the three are already looking to integrate Reinforcement Learning into a new, even more advanced version of the robot. Team member and IE Robotics & AI Club co- founder Diego oversaw Luna’s design and development. Meanwhile, Isabel handled news and weather integrations and the UI, while Laura managed the calendar and music integration. Progress is ongoing: the team has already added a new chat mode that preserves historical user interactions to deliver more tailored recommendations. They’ve also started working on a more advanced version of Luna that will leverage emotion detection techniques for more relevant responses and even greater personalization.