Sesame is a small four-legged walker designed by engineering student Dorian Todd, with two hobby servos per leg, an ESP32 controller and a small OLED screen that shows animated faces. It walks, waves and dances from built-in routines, and its firmware hosts a Wi-Fi control page and a JSON API, so it can also be scripted from Python or a voice assistant.
At a glance
| Parts cost | $50–$60 project · Stated by the project as $50 to $60 in hardware, excluding the 3D printer and filament. The complete kit sells for $100 source ↗ |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 2/5 Easy · Printed parts, basic soldering and an Arduino upload, with a hand-wired board as the hardest step. |
| Build time | Not stated |
| Tools needed | 3D printer (11 PLA parts, supports only on the top cover), soldering iron (hand-wired build or battery leads), Arduino IDE |
| Motors | 8 MG90S micro servos (the 180-degree version) |
| Controller | ESP32 (Lolin S2 Mini for a hand-wired build, or the project's Distro Board V3) |
| Sensors | None in the base design, plus a 128x64 OLED face display |
| Published | ✓ Parts list✓ CAD/STL✓ Assembly guide✓ Wiring✓ Software✓ Video GitHub README guides (parts list, printing, build, wiring, firmware) + YouTube build tutorial |
| Activity | Last update 2026-09-13 · 4,548 GitHub stars · 4,548 GitHub stars, 612 forks and a Discord server |
| Kits | Complete kits ($100) from Full Contact Engineering in limited rounds, sold out in October 2026 |
Licenses
| Design files | Apache-2.0 (CAD, STL files and PCB designs sit in the same repo under the repo license) source ↗ |
|---|---|
| Code | Apache-2.0 source ↗ |
| Documentation | Apache-2.0 (guides in the same repo) source ↗ |
Builder notes
Practical points from the project's issue tracker, forum and docs, each linked to its source.
- Several builders found the robot restarting or crashing on battery power while it ran fine on a USB-C supply. The cause is the battery or buck converter sagging when the servos move, so a strong 5 V, 3 A source matters more than the parts list suggests. source ↗
- MG90S servos vary slightly in where their center sits, which can make a finished robot drift to one side while walking. The firmware gained a sub-trim setting for this, though some builders still needed mechanical adjustment. source ↗
- Early in 2026 the firmware failed to compile with newer ESP32 board packages for the Arduino IDE. A builder posted a corrected header in the issue thread that got it building. source ↗
- The V3 distribution board uses vias smaller than JLCPCB's standard drill limits, which adds a special-process fee there. The parts list points to PCBWay assembly instead, and the hand-wired ESP32-S2 Mini build avoids the custom board entirely. source ↗
Other quadrupeds plans
- Kame32 (MiniKame successor) · $90–$100 · difficulty 2/5
- Stanford Pupper (servo version) · $900–$1,000 (2024) · difficulty 3/5
- Spot Micro (SpotMicroAI) · $420–$510 · difficulty 3/5
- SpotMicroESP32 Leika · $230–$600 · difficulty 3/5
- Pupper v3 · $2,000 · difficulty 4/5
- ODRI Solo 12 · $7,100 (2022) · difficulty 5/5
- Mini Pupper (MangDang) · $760 · difficulty 2/5
- Dingo Quadruped · $900 · difficulty 3/5
- Stanford Pupper v2.1 (DJI motor version) · $1,600 (2023) · difficulty 4/5
- openDog V3 · $2,800–$3,400 (2023) · difficulty 4/5