Ep#71: Build Your Own Robot
Mahi, Jeff, Manan, and Anis, robotics researchers and engineers associated with NYU and Berkeley, discuss building an open-source mobile manipulator with the RoboPapers host and audience.
In this talk
- 1:45
A modular robot under $10,000
The team describes a roughly 30 kg robot with an omnidirectional base, lift, two off-the-shelf arms, custom grippers, and cameras. Its open-source design is modular and intended to be repairable; the team says a failed component can usually be swapped in an hour or two. They report building about three robots so far.
- 6:30
Compliant arms and controlled breakage
The custom grippers use foam to grip household handles, including fridge doors. The team modified the arms’ controllers with gravity compensation and lower stiffness so force spreads across the arm during contact. The gripper coupling is designed as a predictable weak point: it broke 37 times across several robot setups, while the robots themselves remained intact.
- 18:12
Design choices for reach and stability
The team presents the robot as a configurable research platform, with reachability, low cost, and a narrow footprint as priorities. It uses a tabletop lift adapted for closed-loop control, and the team says its low center of mass helps reduce tipping risk. The arms are rated for 1.5 kg, though the team reports testing loads around 2 kg.
- 35:07
Teleoperation, navigation, and learning
The team discusses VR teleoperation and the trade-off between seeing through the robot’s cameras and using the operator’s own view. A demonstration learned a whole-body task involving bimanual box handling, navigation, and lift control from 100 demonstrations and three RGB camera inputs. The robot also has basic SLAM, mapping, obstacle avoidance, and high-level movement commands.
- 47:35
An open platform for community work
The team invites contributions to reduce cost, improve SLAM and hardware, and add sensors or arms. They describe the platform as a starting recipe that labs can adapt, while acknowledging that policies may not transfer cleanly across different robot embodiments. Documentation is available on the project website, and the team is exploring a professionally built version people could order.
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