He Built This Robot in His Parents' Living Room
Aryan, founder of Vnar Robots, discusses building a bipedal humanoid for challenging Indian factories and warehouses with RuntimeBRT’s host at the company’s workspace in his family’s apartment in Thane.
In this talk
- 2:02
Building in a family apartment
Aryan describes the workspace as his parents’ rented apartment in Thane, where the team builds Vnar 1. Most software work is done remotely, with team members in Canada, Japan, and a nearby building; they use teleoperation arms to guide the robot and gather training data.
- 4:31
Developing precise arms and actuators
The team began with an arm and later redesigned it for greater precision. Aryan says one demonstration involved threading a needle, though software still needs to improve at detecting the needle’s opening. Early actuators produced 10 newton-meters and could not support their own weight; later versions reached 150 to 200 newton-meters, with another rated at about 350 newton-meters of stall torque.
- 11:25
Designing for Indian factory conditions
Aryan favors a bipedal design because debris, boxes, uneven floors, and other obstacles can make wheeled robots difficult to use in local factories. The team builds actuators, manipulators, and the robot structure in-house, using mostly Indian-made components and fishing line sourced from Mumbai’s Koli community for the fingers. He says the company is experimenting with locally available materials to reduce manufacturing costs.
- 14:02
Planning for maintenance and deployment
The robot uses two actuator types across its body, which Aryan says could simplify manufacturing and spare-part inventory. The team is developing a design intended to let the humanoid replace a faulty joint itself. Aryan says they are targeting initial factory deployments in May 2027 and have more than 20 beta sign-ups.
- 16:40
Connecting robotics to a wider mission
Aryan links faster manufacturing with humanity’s ability to make progress, and describes a long-term goal of robots helping people in dangerous situations. He argues that systems capable of handling poor lighting, heat, and other harsh factory conditions in India could work in other environments too. The planned beta deployments are intended to expose failures the team can learn from.
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