Experience · 01
KCL Robotics — humanoid
By Haider Ali · Head of Humanoid Development (Lead Engineer), KCL Robotics Society ·
Haider Ali is Head of Humanoid Development at the KCL Robotics Society. He designed its humanoid robot and leads a five-person team through two builds.
Head of Humanoid Development (Lead Engineer) at KCL Robotics Society. Designing the society's humanoid largely single-handedly and leading a five-person team through two builds.
Sep 2026 → · head of humanoid development (lead engineer) · active
I lead KCL Robotics' Humanoid Development Program. I designed the society's humanoid robot in-house, largely single-handedly, and lead the five-person team building it.
Key facts
- Designed largely single-handedly
- Five-person team · two iterations
- CAD, electronics, compute, control
- In-house 3D-printed fabrication
What I designed
- Mechanical: the full CAD and the degree-of-freedom layout.
- Electronics and compute: every circuit and the compute architecture.
- Control: the control software, integrated around open-source actuators.
Leading the build
- Five-person team through fabrication and assembly, across two iterations.
- v1: a partly assembled testbed for testing and research.
- v2: a second robot, now being assembled for public-facing use.
- Budget and sourcing planned by me; parts printed in-house on the society's 3D printers.
- Alongside: SO-101 Studio, a society toolkit for training robot arms by imitation learning.
Stack
- cad
- degree-of-freedom planning
- circuit design
- compute architecture
- control software
- open-source actuators
- 3d printing
#robotics #humanoid #hardware #leadership