AI chatbots are a dime a dozen, sometimes cheaper. Chatbots in custom hardware are less numerous, but still pop up steadily. So if you want a conversational robot to stand out, it helps to go the extra mile. Something like a realistic layer of personality, a shiny gold coat, and six-million forms of communication would help a lot.

Sam Potozkin’s Threepio project pulls it off. Inspired (of course) by the original 1977 film, Potozkin, a student at Chapman University, has tried to replicate the experience of interacting with the iconic protocol droid as faithfully as possible. He put in the work to give the 3D-printed case a smooth finish, and added little greeblies to the display stand to sell it.

But the work didn’t stop there. His C-3PO runs the AI chat stack locally on a Raspberry Pi 5.…