Printing the exterior#

I have begun printing the exterior shell, made further weight modifications, and switched to a 4 A power supply. Alongside the physical build, I have started integrating YOLOE and done extensive work on MetaHuman’s node workflows and trained Qwen 0.8B intent and task models.

The robot could stand, walk and respond to commands on October 8, without the carapace. Shell fit is next; Active Operator remains untested.

Overhead Blender render of Ainekio’s red shell, black chassis, and exposed linkages — October 12 Blender assembly.

Overhead Blender view of the red shell panels and neutral leg placement — October 12: shell panels from above.

Blender rear view of the shell, switch opening, and leg linkages — Rear shell and linkages.

Wireless Blender assembly, neutral stance.

From exposed chassis to shell components#

Build area	October 8 record	October 12 progress
Exterior	Carapace not attached; exposed wiring in the photograph	Exterior printing has begun; front and rear shell export sets are available locally
Weight	Earlier approximately 20% improvement remained an estimate	Further weight reduction; assembled mass not yet measured
Power	Batteries and onboard charging boards were the intended replacement for the heavy bank	Switched to a 4 A power supply
Camera/display packaging	Camera carrier and longer front tray were local work	Camera cradle, split chin pieces and revised LCD-carrier exports
Movement	Standing, walking and command response reported	Local Lay Down / Play Dead entry and recovery paths revised; physical qualification remains separate

Still to record: supply voltage, rail wiring, current draw, and the final battery arrangement.

Earlier October 10 shell reference

Earlier October 10 rear-shell Blender reference — October 10 rear-shell revision.

The Blender print record#

All modeling is done in Blender. The source folders contain these dated sets:

Export set	Files in this snapshot	Purpose / iteration
Front shell	15 STLs	Upper visor; paired temple, side-shell and cheek-fang pieces; paired side/cheek keys and flush pins
Rear compact arch	8 STLs	Left, center and right arch; front/rear saddles; M3-named rear panel and left/right braces
Camera cradle	4 STLs	Camera cradle, LCD carrier, left chin and right chin

Download the 27 prototype STLs. October 9–12 exports, including alternative revisions. Mating fit, print settings, and fastener lengths still need checking. File manifest.

The robot repository also has local rear-helmet, rear-visor and updated center support exports. These are separate from the three folder sets in the download.

Side reference of the robot's shell and linkage in Blender — October 10 side reference.

Blender reference showing the shoulder linkage folded near the shell — October 10 folded-shoulder study.

Lift each foot before lowering the body#

The local motion authoring now gives Lay Down and Play Dead individual lift-and-place steps before lowering the body. The generator specifies an 8 mm lift, 0.8 seconds per initial foot placement, then 2 seconds of body lowering. Both sampled clips retain a seven-second authored duration and the original start and terminal references. Runtime speed settings can change playback duration.

The sampled files show a useful reduction in peak joint speed:

Offline quantity	Lay Down: previous → revised	Play Dead: previous → revised
Authored duration	7.0 → 7.0 s	7.0 → 7.0 s
Peak joint speed	216.36 → 137.59°/s	308.62 → 156.16°/s
Lowest modeled sole height	−0.067 → approximately 0 mm	−0.240 → approximately 0 mm
Minimum modeled body clearance	0.15 → 0.15 mm	0.15 → 0.15 mm
Hardware qualified / collision checked	No / no	No / no

The P4 source retraces the grounded clip in reverse before entering a new named motion, with a short alignment segment. Hardware testing of this recovery is still pending.

Download the before/after validation data or continue through the gait journal.

The software side of the build#

The YOLOE entry follows the move from person-only detection to search and selected targets, including the live chair tracking result and the camera recovery problem. The MetaHuman entry records the trained intent/task split, workflow changes and why a later candidate was rejected.

Sources: October 12 build notes; Blender exports and captures; local motion source and validation records at Ainekio commit 436c035 plus uncommitted changes. Exact reviewed hashes are in the source manifest.