Our Journey With pib: Stories From The Heart of a Growing Community
Behind every robot is a human story – or in pib’s case, many of them. As we celebrate three years of pib, we took a moment to look back – not just at how far this little robot has come, but at the vibrant community that’s grown around it. From curious students to creative makers and passionate advocates for accessibility, pib has sparked ideas, inspired projects, and opened doors. We talked to a few of our community members to hear their stories – how they discovered pib, what they’re building with it, and where they see it heading next.
How Bayreuth Students Financed and Kickstarted Their Own Robotics Project
The story behind GMG Robotik is one that truly inspired us. It all started with a group of students from the Graf-Münster-Gymnasium Bayreuth who were passionate about starting a robotics project in their school. So passionate in fact that they took matters into their own hands and set out in teams to make their dream come true. First, there was financing: They began looking for sponsors and found them in different companies in their area, the support association of their school, donations by private persons and last but not least, different events they attended. There was, for example, their school’s Open House and a Christmas market type of event held by their school where they showed up with a self-made version of pib, answered questions and collected donations.
Finally, the financing was complete, so they were able to purchase the pib.Education box a few months ago and began 3D printing and building the robot. The assembly is now almost complete. Their goals? To complete the robot and be able to showcase its imitation feature until the end of the school year. Next school year, the next class will be able to take over pib and continue its journey. This group of students has paved the way for the next generation of STEM talents at the Graf-Münster-Gymnasium Bayreuth to be able to enjoy a hands-on learning platform for 3D printing, robotics and AI. We are truly amazed by their passion and commitment to this wonderful project.
Their biggest highlight in working with pib? When its eyes lit up for the first time. What they would like to see next is legs for pibs and the possibility for it to be remote controlled.
You can follow their story on Instagram for more insights into their project.
A Chess-Playing Robot Companion For Life
Another very inspiring story came from Rainer, a community member who first met pib at the Maker Faire Hannover two years ago and was fascinated by how professionally it is made. He has been wanting to create a humanoid robot that plays chess and it seemed like a perfect match. However, a few modifications had to be made, especially in pib’s hands. For chess playing, movements have to be very precise, accurate to 1-2 mm. By now, our chess friend has three pibs at home, one of them with a modified InMoove head, and is working with these three versions to make the best out of his goal.
Another interesting idea Rainer presented is bringing pib to senior citizens. Once set up, it is an easy-to-use computer – no mouse or keyboard needed, you simply speak to the robot and it reacts. This might even make pib a helper in the fight against growing loneliness in our aging society. His vision is truly inspiring: A robot friend from young age on that accompanies you to old age, answers your questions, plays games with you and supports you in daily life.
Rainer’s favorite part about pib? How it is not just an engineer behind the project, building technology for other engineers, but a robotics project with societal interests in mind, and watching the growing interest in pib among senior citizens.
For the future, Rainer wishes for more mobility for pib and more options with different servos, for example so you can run it not fast but quieter. Another great idea he had was to create a basic core to which application-specific modules can be added depending on what you want to do with the robot.
Bringing Digitalization To Rural Germany
We also spoke to Simon, a community member who works for BayernLab, an initiative by the State of Bavaria that wants to make digitalization tangible in rural areas of Germany where there are few museums or labs. They offer workshops, 3D printers, VR glasses, etc. to try out free of charge. They were looking for a humanoid robot and when they found pib, a meaningful cooperation was born.
For the group working on pib, it was a true highlight to take the chance to actually get together and build the robot, after mostly working remotely as a team. They were facing challenges and celebrating successes together, making it an inspirational project for everyone involved.
For Simon, it would be great to make programming skills scalable to age and experience, maybe make it possible where you can program something on a smaller version of pib and then transfer it to the big pib in order to show everyone.
A 3D Printed Robot Going Around The World
Another inspiring story we heard came from our chief CAD designer Sebastian. We met him at the first German Onshape Meeting and he has been on board ever since, supporting us in designing new CAD parts and continuously optimizing them as we go. His favorite part about pib is the opportunity it gives to students to build their own robot – something he wishes had been possible when he was that age. For him, it is also wonderful to see self-designed CAD parts being 3D printed at the other end of Germany and even beyond national borders.
Sebastian’s vision for pib’s future is a bold one: What if you turned pib on and it remained on 24/7, continuously taking notes of what is happening in its vicinity, writing some sort of diary? That way, you would get home from work, ask pib what is new and he will tell you things like “Oh, the cat spilled the milk” – also, in a way, a companion for life.
Do you want to become part of pib’s journey? Join us on Discord to get started!
