Andy Noyes debuted his robot – Agnes Roboknit – at the 2013 Maker Faire U.K. Named in honor of his grandmother, the robot explores empathic responses between human-robot interactions – the man wanted to scare kids. Agnes is designed to look humanoid from afar with its latex skin casts moulded from plaster casts of a real person’s limbs. The robot is built to show off its gears which are driven by DC motors.
Originally Agnes would have been fitted with knitting needles but a loom was easier to integrate into the design. “To start with it was A.G.N.E.S., and I wanted it to be an acronym as if from the early days of computers. Though I couldn’t think up a good acronym so it just became Agnes. Also my grandmother, who used to knit — as all grandmothers do, don’t they? — was called Agnes.” – Andy Noyes.
You can watch Agnes in action over here, there is also a facebook page over here.