French designer shows off DIY robot in public for 1st time

Britain’s real-life ‘Iron Man’ has high hopes for jet suit

BUCHAREST, Romania, May 27, (Agencies): A French designer has shown his humanoid DIY robot to the public for the first time.

The life-size plastic model responded to English-language commands Friday, picking up and dropping a small ball and swiveling its head to follow people.

Designer Gael Langevin unveiled the robot at a technology fair in Romania this week. The idea developed from a prosthetics hand he made in 2011, the first-ever made on a 3-D printer. The robot is made with a 3-D printer and microcameras.

It is hoped the robot will be used to help children in schools and hospitals. If connected to the internet, it can answer a variety of questions taken from Wikipedia.

Langevin admits his model, generically called InMoov, is not yet perfect.

“This is a little bit like Geppetto building Pinocchio. You make a robot and you send it in the world and you see what the others are going to do with it,” he said.

Children visiting the fair seemed thrilled.

“He is awesome,” said Adrian Margineanu, a student at Bucharest’s elite St. Sava school. “I like it a lot. I’m tempted to make one.”

For those who don’t want to assemble it, InMoov offers a list of builders in different countries. Langevin estimates that more than 1,000 DIY robots have been made by people who followed his design.

His robot can be programmed to speak English, Spanish, French, Russian and Dutch. But Romanian graphic designer Paul Popescu, 35, has been assembling his own robot and has plans to program it to speak Romanian.

A basic model costs about 1,500 euros ($1,665).

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The British inventor of an “Iron Man”-style jet suit has lofty hopes that his project, which started out as fun experiment, could become a practical tool for industries ranging from entertainment to the military.

Richard Browning, a 38-year-old former commodities trader with little experience of engineering, developed his jet suit with the help of friends over the last 18 months. It is powered by six gas turbine engines which combined generate 800 horse-power.

“We didn’t set out to build an “Iron Man” suit — it’s just accidental,” Browning said, in reference to the highly successful trilogy of super hero films starring Robert Downey Jr.

The suit’s engines are mounted on the pilot’s lower back and on each arm. It powers up using a hand-held throttle. Browning said the suit is capable

A woman poses next to French designer Gael Langevin’s InMoov robot after he unveiled it at a technology fair in Bucharest, Romania on May

26. (AP)

of carrying a person thousands of feet in the air, and in theory could attain a speed of around 280 miles an hour (450 kph).

For safety reasons, however, Browning hovers just a few feet off the ground.

Browning, who first developed the suit in his garage, describes it as a cross between a jet ski and a Formula One car. He believes it can be adapted to be used in the military, search and rescue and theme parks — or in fact anyone who has the funds to buy one.

Browning showed off his piloting skills at a flight test on Thursday, breaking his record for speed by travelling over 30mph, covering a distance of several hundred meters.

Browning said he has received investment from a venture capitalist, and has also secured interest from entertainment giants and the British and U.S. militaries.