Wisconsin Humanoid Robotics targets first steps by May 2027
Wisconsin Humanoid Robotics is beginning to build a student designed bipedal robot at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with the team targeting a first walk down a campus hallway by May 2027. According to the university’s College of Engineering, the robot, named Sconnie, is designed to stand 4 feet tall and will be made primarily of aluminum. Around 110 active students are participating across 17 subteams. Walking is the immediate engineering objective; more demanding manipulation tasks are ambitions for later versions.
The group developed the robot’s mechanical design during the 2025 to 2026 academic year, including plans for its legs, arms and balance systems. Mechanical teams will mill most of the robot and use equipment in the college’s Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab to 3D print components. Electrical teams are consulting professionals to check their work, while the software team is beginning to write the code that will control Sconnie after studying humanoid robotics theory. Fifteen of the 17 subteams continued meeting weekly over the summer, and leadership has been working on fundraising and sponsorships to support fabrication during the 2026 to 2027 academic year.
The organization was conceived by mechanical engineering student Grant Gao, who approached fellow student Max Schneider in 2025 before starting his freshman year. Its practical value is the opportunity for undergraduates to work across mechanical design, electronics and software on a single humanoid build, rather than treating those disciplines as separate exercises. If the walking goal is achieved, team leaders plan to develop later versions around tasks such as folding laundry or using tools, and potentially enter humanoid robot competitions. Those remain conditional plans. “Walking is the milestone, not the end goal,” Gao says. For the current team, the next concrete target is a walking Sconnie by graduation day in May 2027.
Source: College of Engineering – University of Wisconsin-Madison
