The design is by Scott Wiley. If you've been to the Anybots / Y Combinator offices, the oil paintings on the walls are all his. He's also a mechanical engineer

The design is by Scott Wiley. If you've been to the Anybots / Y Combinator offices, the oil paintings on the walls are all his. He's also a mechanical engineer who has designed space station lasers &c. Modern 3D cad software & stereolithography are amazing. You can get a student edition of SolidWorks, upload the 3D files to stereolithography.com, and get parts back in a week. Cost for smallish parts is tens to hundreds of dollars.