DIY Robot Cat Moves Just Like the Real Thing

It seems that the robot pets are coming back! This Instructables user has designed its own cat and it's robotically cute. It sure does look like a small cat version of the Spot the Robot, with much less to do. 

The user's motto "Make it yourself if you cannot buy one!" perfectly fits his 18 step guide to how to build one. 

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Inspired by other robot cat and dog projects he had been following online for two years, he came up with his own robot cat model. The only shortcoming was that those robots didn't resemble a cat or dog, he says.

The little kitty runs on an M5Stack Camera Module and power circuit, with a lot of wires tidied up towards the end of the process. 

He studied the basic anatomy of the domestic cats, adapted the four-leg skeleton into the design. He used two servos that enabled its head to turn and nod properly. Tail motion is the most difficult to adapt and imitate, he mentions, as a natural tail moves with many joints and muscles. However, he used only one servo for the tail which holds it upright all the time.

After he was done with the bionics part, he quickly jumped onto the 3D part, basically for 3D printing each assembly. 

He even covered the paws with some rubber to prevent excessive friction. Look how mechanically cute it turned out!

He had used a 0.23 inch (6 mm) M3 screw to put the joints together. 

The user has been working on the project for two years. But he still has a lot to do. One of them is to edit the HTML and Javascript codes to add more of a real cat's motions which will get him close to the reason why he started at first.

The Robot Cat is able to turn its head and can wave with his front leg, as you might see in the video below. Hi Kitty!