Vulkan Research

Robotics research, built in the open.

An independent research lab building the next generation of open robots, and expanding access to robotics knowledge for builders worldwide.

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Orion: Expressive desk-lamp robot
01 · Robotics, Embedded AI

Orion

Active since July 2026

A home robot in the form of a desk lamp that listens, speaks and moves with character.

Orion is a home robot in the form of a desk lamp, built to assist and interact in a warm, playful, expressive way. Its onboard computer runs microphone processing, wake detection, speech recognition, speech synthesis and the motion runtime.

v230 Sep 2026 – present

Redesigned body: a 200 × 230 mm base, straight two-piece arms with 150 mm and 131 mm spans, and a 125 mm head carrying the camera, speaker and LED ring.

Stack Raspberry Pi 5, ReSpeaker 2-Mics HAT, Rustpotter, Qwen ASR, Piper TTSProject log →
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