Kid Cosmo Humanoid Robot

UCLA RoMeLa x Netflix | August 2023 - March 2025

Led a team to develop a fully custom humanoid platform and achieved torque controlled walking as well as successful demonstration at many live events for the Netflix movie The Electric State.

Fully developed from concept through design, manufacturing, assembly, and full integration/testing in 2 years, created 2 identical robots

I served as project lead as well as the main hardware and embedded software engineer. Also coordinated logistics for our live events and press tour.

Successfully went live at New York Comic Con, London Comic Con, Lucca Comics and Games, Netflix Executive Summit, Pickleball Slam 3, and more.

Mechanical:

Fully designed a topology optimized lower body mechanical system to handle walking loads while minimizing weight/inertia
Programmed CAM and CNC machined 150+ components for each robot while meeting fit and tolerancing requirements
Designed and integrated quasi-direct drive actuators for quick response joint actuation
Assisted with shell/cladding design to mimic the Kid Cosmo character from the movie

Electronics:

Developed a highly integrated PCB to handle motor actuation, encoder feedback, power conversion, and data transfer for our wrist joint
Created a 900 MHz handheld controller and receiver for robot control in highly noisy environments, integrates 2 joysticks, 15 buttons, and LED screen
Developed various filtering boards to filter noise on signal lines
Designed and manufactured all harnessing including shielded signal and various power cables

Software:

Wrote embedded C firmware for various PCBs
- Custom RTOS for timely and deterministic task execution
- Low level motor controllers
- Sensor input and filtering
- Communications (UART, SPI, I2C, USB)
Wrote C++ Linux side drivers to interface with various PCBs
Created various Python scripts for testing hardware

Torque controlled walking

Upper body motions with active balancing

CNC machining Kid Cosmo parts

Event Photos

Technical Photos