Speaking to someone by Skype from your phone can be a bit awkward at times, with person on the other end often seeing only half your face or a closeup of your earlobe. Enter Botiful, a telepresence robot for consumers designed by Clair Delaunay who used Shapeways 3D Printing for her prototypes. She's already raised over $62k on Kickstarter thus far and has racked up some support by others who are hoping for more natural remote conversations, including TechCrunch and Skype's former Chief Architect Ahti Heinla.

With Skype as a simple interface, the telepresence platform for Android phones roams around and lets you be remotely present from anywhere in the world. Botiful can enable Skype video calls, baby monitoring, and even entertaining your pets...

Claire used 3D Printing with Shapeways for some of her prototyping and functional designs, from creating the robot's appearance to testing how she could mount the motors, sensors, electronic board, and battery. She also used 3D Printing with Shapeways to design an efficient mechanism for the tilting head (she 3D printed the gears).