Printing the Skeleton
Scaffold rails coming off the bed. Unmute for the good part.
The founding builds stopped being a drawing this week.
What's on the bed in that clip is the least glamorous, most important part of the whole robot: the rails. Six side rails and nine cross rails per unit — the bones that carry the base plate, the corner posts, the battery shelf, the screen wedge, and eventually the head. Every one of them prints flat, no supports, with little pockets that swallow an M4 nut so the whole frame bolts together like a machine instead of snapping together like a toy.
The full skeleton is about two dozen printed parts and eighty-five screws. White parts are structure. Charcoal parts are the screw-on skin. The gray bits — the brain, the screen, the servos, the tracks — arrive in boxes and mount to what you see here.
Why print it?
Because these five are founding builds, and printing means every unit can be repaired, revised, and reprinted forever. If a panel breaks in year six, the fix is a file, not a discontinued part number. That's the same reason the robot works offline and its memory moves to new hardware: nothing about Meckie should have an expiration date we don't control.
Next on the bench: the corner posts, the base plate, and then the part I've been looking forward to — the head. The wiring diagram is taped to the wall. The servos know their angles. The five nameplates are getting engraved.
If you want one of the five, the founding list is open — that list hears everything first.
— Chad