Cumilla students make Bangladesh’s first humanoid robot

Two students of a private university in Cumilla have built, what they call Bangladesh’s first open source humanoid robot.

Named Mia-1, the robot took two-and-a-half months to complete and cost about Tk 40,000. It does not require feeding instructions using a smartphone.

The robot can listen to people or users and respond accordingly.

Mahmuda Arefin, one of the engineers, is a third-year student of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Britannia University. Ashraful Rahman Minhaj, the team leader, is a second-year student of the department.

The university authorities unveiled the robot on its Paduar Bazar campus recently.

The robot has a seven-inch LCD touch screen on its chest. Using the screen, users can easily command the robot and get information from it.

Mia-1 can talk as well as display related photographs on the screen. The robot, which is about four feet tall, is equipped with modern cameras and can work as a teacher as well as a receptionist, its makers claimed.

Minhaj and Mahmuda said they could not have succeeded without the inspiration and cooperation of professor Masum Bakaul and vice chancellor Tofail Ahmed.

They built the robot at the university’s laboratory.

“We’re lagging behind in technology because no-one really discloses anything about their inventions. We’ve made ours open source for everyone to see,” Minhaj said.

He said they plan to use state-of-the-art technologies in Mia-2, their next robot.