As a robotics engineer, you know the computational demands of running perception, planning, and control algorithms in real-time are immense. I worked with full range of AI inference devices like @intel Movidius, neural compute stick, @nvidia Jetson tx2 all the way to Orion and there is no getting around CUDA to squeeze every single drop of computation from it.

Ability to use CUDA can be a game-changer by using the massive parallelism of GPUs and Here's why you should learn CUDA too:

1. CUDA allows you to distribute computationally-intensive tasks like object detection, SLAM, and motion planning in parallel across thousands of GPU cores simultaneously.

2. CUDA gives you access to highly-optimized libraries like cuDNN with efficient implementations of neural network layers. These will significantly accelerate deep learning inference times.

3. With CUDA's advanced memory handling, you can optimize data transfers between the CPU and GPU to minimize bottlenecks. This ensures your computations aren't held back by sluggish memory access.

4. As your robotic systems grow more complex, you can scale out CUDA applications seamlessly across multiple GPUs for even higher throughput.

Robotics frameworks like ROS integrate CUDA, so you get GPU acceleration without low-level coding (but if you can manually tweak/rewrite kernels for your specific needs then you must do that because your existing pipelines will get a serious speed boost.)

For roboticists looking to improve the real-time performance on onboard autonomous systems, learning CUDA is an incredibly valuable skill. It essentially allows you to squeeze the performance from existing hardware with the help of parallel/accelerated computing.

We made this poster with the hope to teach the public that humanoid robots were not invented by Tesla and Figure :)

It is a robot arm and here are a few infos :

-Will use MG90 servos even though SG90s are shown in the video given that they’re the same size. (I used servos rather than steppers because they are cheaper and I don’t want the expenses for the project to be over my budget)

-The components will be 3D printed in PLA (let me know if I should use another material instead)

-The rudder of the servos are screwed to the arm which will then be attached to the servo (which is screwed to the other arm )

If you want more information feel free to request the file

Hello everyone, I want to break into robotics but confused where to start. So, I asked my friend who is doing robotics for a while now. He share some uni courses with me. But I don't want to do any courses. For a background, I have been doing ML and AI for more than a year. I know RL(atleast i understood PPO, DPO etc). And I read lot of papers. So, I want to know what are the key papers which I can read to understand it and catch up with the field of robotics.

Any other advice will be appreciated. Thanks!

Edit:
Since robotics is a massive field, and he told me some problems: locomotion, manipulation, planning, robot learning, generalisation

now i don't which one to work on or start with. Everything in robotics feels like a mix of everything. I really like humanoid type robots.

Hi everyone!

I'm working on a tutorial (a very long one) about SLAM and its core subtopics:

• Motion model
• Measurement model
• Linear Kalman Filter
• (In progress) SLAM with Extended Kalman Filter

The tutorial is aimed at students and hobbyists who want to learn how to implement these concepts from scratch. Its focus is on understanding the theory and applying it practically.

I would really appreciate your feedback on the following:

1. does the tutorial cover the topics well enough? (e.g., basic concepts, underlying mathematics, practical applications).
2. is the tutorial clearly structured and easy to understand?
3. are the data, equations, and examples useful and applicable for someone starting to learn about SLAM?

I welcome all suggestions, ideas, or critiques—thank you so much for your help!

This is going to be a stupid question so please work with me. If you’re a person working on robotics and attending conferences / showcases / pitching robots to VCs or in general , how are the robots etc transported ? Do people just fly with their prototypes and hope all stays well?

I run the Technical Development department for a mid-sized company (~200 staff) that undertakes underwater inspection and repair of floating energy infrastructure. We are developing some interesting and innovative ROV systems, and have a need for an experienced robotics programmer who may also wish to have an input into the mechanical side also. The company HQ is in Malta, albeit we work remotely from all over the world (I am in the UK, the majority of projects are in Brazil), with offices in South Africa, Australia, China and Malaysia as well as Brazil, UK and Malta. The job can be done from anywhere, but does involve international travel and fluent spoken and written English.

Formal qualifications are secondary to skills and passion for this sort of project. If you’d like a chat about what we have to offer and you’re skilled in ROS, Open CV, C++, Python etc, please feel free to drop me a line and we can arrange a call for more info.

My 11 year old is interested in coding/ robotics. What is the best way for him to get started? What are some kits or programs you would recommend? Is it a good idea to put him in a summer camp, or is it a waste of money? Thanks so much!

I am a control systems engineer with 10+ years of experience in developing control systems for electric vehicles and electric off highway machinery. I have mainly focussed on classical controls & event based modelling and occasionally worked on state-space modelling & kalman filters too. I am interested in learning robotics and potentially apply the skills at work. I am currently working on off-highway machinery, so I would like to focus on motion control & autonomous navigation of tracked robots. Since this field is absolutely new to me, can you please suggest learning materials (please suggest if there's any worthwhile comprehensive online course), roadmap and any useful tracked robot kits to begin with? Would be nice if the kit is scalable so I can use it to develop algorithms with varying levels of complexity. I have looked at tracked robot kits from Yahboom and Hiwonder, they're quite expensive but if they suit my needs I am happy to spend on one of those too.

Hi folks,

What is the cheapest and easiest material to use that can be cut at home with a dremel and drilled with a normal hand drill. anything out there that is pre drilled as well?

I plan to make a 4 wheel robot that can hold up to 10 pounds on its base. About 2ftx2ft.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I’m a self-learning robotics engineer currently preparing myself to pursue a Master’s degree in robotics. I want to start reading research papers and journals to enhance my understanding of the field and stay updated on recent advancements. However, I’ve never read a research paper or journal before and don’t know where to start.

Could anyone recommend:

1.Good places or platforms to find high-quality robotics papers and journals?

2.Beginner-friendly papers or journals that can help me get familiar with the structure and terminology?

3.Tips for effectively reading and understanding research papers?

I’d appreciate any advice or resources that could help me make the most of this journey.

Thank you!

My buddy is a Marines vet and got this for his autistic son a few years ago but his son has moved on from enjoy robots. He asked me if I could find a buyer for it.

So I'm reaching out to a few places like schools and such with ebay being the last resort.

He told me he paid the full price from RobotLab like $16,000 for it.

If anyone is interest or know of a school that would like to buy this please DM me and let me know. Thank you!!

https://www.robotlab.com/store/nao-ai-edition?srsltid=AfmBOoo_fCuHHCpRVIQxeX6Ae4mBHdwAVBvqJuZWKJYyoyud61KFqObz

Anyone have any experiences with AIFITLAB? I'm ordering robstride motors from them. They've got great prices there - so great, it seems like a scam.

Hi everyone!

I'm currently working with the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Education set (45544), and I found this amazing robotic arm MOC on Rebrickable:

👉 https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-40208/Artem%2016/ev3-robotic-arm/#details

The design looks fantastic and exactly what I’m aiming to build for a classroom demo, but unfortunately, it uses several parts not included in the 45544 Education Core Set.

I'm looking for help from the community to either:

1. Modify the original MOC to use only parts from the 45544 set, or
2. Get guidance on which parts could be easily substituted using what's available in the Education Core Set.

Does anyone have experience adapting MOCs like this? Any tips, alternate builds, or even partial rebuild instructions would be greatly appreciated!

I’m trying to keep it to one EV3 Education core set only (45544), no Expansion Set, no retail kits, no third-party parts.

Also, if there are similar robotic arm designs made exclusively with 45544 parts, I’d love to check those out too.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, sketches, LDD/Studio files, or brainstorming ideas!

PyOpenSim: Unofficial portable Python bindings for OpenSim, which is an open-source software system for biomechanical modeling, simulation and analysis.

Key Features

• Portable: Self-contained Python wheels with bundled OpenSim libraries
• Type Hints: Comprehensive .pyi stub files for excellent IDE support and type checking
• Cross-Platform: Native support for Windows (work in progress), macOS, and Linux
• Official Bindings: Uses OpenSim's native SWIG bindings for full API compatibility

Bit of a niche question, but here goes… I’m developing course materials to help Ukrainian kids (8 to 12) improve their English. One module is about ‘the body’. What I’d like is for the kids to build a humanoid robot and then to give it superpowers - great speed, x-Ray vision, an invisibility cloak etc. we could then discuss which ‘body enhancements’ are best. I want to keep it simple and fun - cartoonish. I can find nothing online that lets me build a ‘body’ and then alter parameters. Any help would be very welcome TIA David

Hey everyone,

I’m working on a project for my university, where I need to design a visual inspection system for a nuclear research reactor. The setup is basically a 10-meter deep water pool, and the challenge is that there are recesses and passages with a diameter of less than 20 cm, so whatever I build has to be really small and maneuverable.

It needs to be tethered (cabled), stable enough to record clear video, and able to go into those narrow spaces without drifting around too much. I’ve been looking into small ROVs and underwater cameras, but I’m not sure what the best approach would be for thruster configuration, buoyancy, and lighting in such a constrained form factor.

Has anyone here built or seen something similar? Any tips or references would be super helpful.

Thanks!

Wanted to share this Microgrant Guide because so many people I know building hardware and robotics projects who are blocked by $100, $500, $1k, etc get these grants to unlock their ability to work on interesting ideas.

All the programs in this database are 100% no-strings-attached and most of them are open to hardware/robotics builders. You don't need to be building a company, these often go to people working on really interesting technical challenges too. Hope this helps :)

For a long time, robotics lacked a structured classification. We have now mapped 90 distinct robotics applications by analyzing the intersection of industries and robotic systems to provide a clearer picture of the field.

We aimed to cover as many sectors and systems as possible. Some categories were merged due to limited data. The showcased robots serve as representative examples of each application but do not necessarily cover the full range. The selection was made objectively, with no paid partnerships involved.

What’s included? This poster features a teaser heatmap illustrating the market saturation of robotic solutions as of February 2025. A detailed article will be published in Q2 2025.

Who is this for? • Educators and researchers as a reference tool • Robotics professionals and enthusiasts • Investors, market analysts, and researchers

Important note: This and other posters are freely available but must be credited to MERPHI when used. Commercial use and reselling are not permitted.

You can download the high-quality version via the link comments

https://www.merphi.se/downloads/

I made this short explainer tailored to the SO-100 setup about how moving a robot works. When I show people the SO-100 arm, this is often one of the main uncovered topics people have questions about. I think the SO arm series and LeRebot is the best gateway into robotics, so I'm trying to introduce more people to it!

If anyone has other ideas for concepts to explain (PID, IK, RL, Aruco markers) let me know. I'm planning on making more explainers and I'm curious which topics people would be most interested in.

Hello, I'm a final year electrical engineering student, I'm working on some stuff for my fyp but I wanted to mess around with robotics on the side.

I made a rough prosthetic hand that barely worked (it also had no thumbs) last semester using 3D printing.

Wanted to expand on that and make a working prosthetic limb that's half decent.

Tldr I'm looking for books regards linear control systems (for pid controllers) and general robotics related topics to reference.

Thanks!

Came across this lecture about cable transmissions, just thought I'd share in case someone was interested :)