Build a Dropbear

You print it.
You wire it.
You teach it.

The DIY path to a Dropbear humanoid. ~$1.5k–3k in parts, 8–12 weekends, fully open BOM and printables. Two agents do the heavy lifting on parts and plates so you can focus on assembly.

Start the build journey→See it in AR first→Or buy assembled→

Parts cost

$1.5–3k

open BOM

Time

8–12 weekends

~38h across 10 sessions

Printables

352+

fits on a 256mm bed

BOM lines

126

canonical, traceable

How it works

Two agents do the procurement. You do the assembly.

01 · Sourcing agent

Buys every part it can

Reads the canonical BOM, watches your inventory, and runs continuously in two modes:

Online runs. Browses real vendor sites — McMaster, Amazon, AliExpress, Misumi. Builds carts, you watch each step before paying.
Local runs. Knows your region, plans a driving route to the parts you can pick up that weekend.

The goal is a single thing: every line on the BOM transitions from needed → ordered → in hand.

02 · Printing agent

Runs your bed

Pushes plates straight to your Bambu over LAN. Groups parts by color, so you print all-black-panels.3mf, accent-amber.3mf — not part-by-part guesswork.

Picks the next plate based on which session you're on and which parts are blocking it.
Watches progress live. Pause, retry, reslice without leaving the dashboard.

352 printables organized by region. Goal: every plate done before its session.

Both agents are watched, never autonomous in the spending sense. You approve every cart and every plate. The agents do the boring research, the cart-building, the slicer round-trips — and stop when a human decision is needed.

The journey

10 sessions. 59+ steps. Each session ends in a mechanical artifact — a torso that holds itself up, a leg that bears load. Every step has CAD highlights, parts manifest, exit verification.

01
Torso Assembly
→ A futuristic, rigid robot torso — square, light, holds its shape under hand-twist. The first part of your Dropbear that exists in the real world.
torso2h
02
Pelvis & Hip Assembly
→ The pelvis subassembly — the load-bearing bridge between torso and legs, with hip pitch/yaw/roll mounts ready for actuators.
pelvis2h
03
Left Leg Assembly
→ The left leg from hip to ankle — femur, tibia, knee revolute, ankle pitch/roll. Articulates freely once actuators are mounted.
l-leg3h
04
Right Leg Assembly
→ The right leg — mirror of the left. Same instructions, mirrored parts. About 30% faster the second time.
r-leg3h
05
Left Foot
→ The left foot — a smart sensing platform with four 50kg load cells embedded in TPU pads. Dropbear feels the ground through this.
l-foot2h
06
Right Foot
→ The right foot — mirror of the left. Same sensing platform, same process.
r-foot2h
07
Left Arm & Hand
→ The left upper limb — shoulder yaw/pitch/roll, elbow, wrist, and the Aero Hand with five tendon-driven fingers at 7 DoF, 16 joints, 389 g.
l-hand5h
08
Right Arm & Hand
→ The right upper limb — mirror of the left. Same instructions, mirrored parts.
r-hand4h
09
Head — the Egg
→ The Dropbear head: Stewart platform with 6-DOF motion, camera, Jetson Orin running local LLM. The face that talks back.
head8h
10
Full Robot Integration
→ All nine subassemblies joined into a standing Dropbear. First full-body power-on: every joint alive, sensors live, the robot as a system for the first time.
full-robot8h