Niki the Humanoid Robot
Niki is a fully 3D-printed humanoid robot I built over five years, designed as a seamless integration of intelligence and physical interaction. The hardware is based on the open-source InMoov STL design, which I adapted and modified to fit the system's needs. Niki combines computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, and embedded systems to perceive, understand, and respond in real time, recognizing faces through a custom-trained neural network, holding conversations through a ChatGPT-based personality layer with retrieval-augmented generation, and controlling motion through Arduino and ESP32 firmware. More than a collection of technologies, Niki explores how AI can move beyond screens into the physical world as something people can naturally interact with. The project was later nicknamed the first AI humanoid robot in Greece by national television and presented at MIT Technology Review EmTech 2025.