MechSmith is a one-man workshop with a documentation habit.

MechSmith started as a maker-and-repair venture: 3D printing, woodworking, DIY builds, and fixing the things other people give up on. The Building Bobby docu-series is the workshop log for the most ambitious project yet — a friendly AI droid, designed and built from scratch.

Everything is documented in the open: the decisions, the diagrams, the dead ends. If a choice gets reversed (it will), the reversal gets posted too. Future builders should be able to follow the whole trail.

The ground rules

• Budget: $1,000. Every part is tracked against it, publicly.
• Safety first. The droid's microcontroller spine can veto anything the AI brain suggests. No exceptions.
• Simple beats gribbled. Clean, serviceable, documented — then pretty.
• Prove it, then scale it. One test wheel before four. One barrel before a magazine.

The droid, briefly

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