
PyRobot - davidfoster
https://www.pyrobot.org/
======
Wavelets
Man, another (potential) foundational AI/ML/Robotics library from Facebook. At
some point every major open source library in this field is going to be run
out of a FAANG company. I wonder what the impact of this will be in the long
run.

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SCUSKU
One impact is that a $5,000 robot is labeled as a "a low cost" robot.

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detaro
Not really. That's just sadly the state of whats "low cost" in that market,
regardless if you work in FAANG, traditional industries or academia.

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qubex
Am I the only one who associates the name ‘Pyrobot’ with the idea of an
autonomous flame-launcher?

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juanuys
It might indeed be possible to build your own pyrobot using PyRobot.

~~~
qubex
What could possibly go wrong?

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Adaptive
Readers of this thread may be interested in lower cost options. I built a
middle school robotics curriculum around Dexter GoPiGo robots:
[https://www.dexterindustries.com/gopigo3/](https://www.dexterindustries.com/gopigo3/)

While you can do visual/block based coding on these, it also has built in
Python support and the whole curriculum I ran was Python based.

My criteria for selection of this platform included: \- support for Grove
sensors \- flexibility in machining own parts if desired \- Python support \-
rPi based

(no affiliation with this company, just a positive real world end-
user/educator experience)

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travbrack
Is your curriculum online?

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vongomben
Yes please share any links if possible educator here as well

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DrNuke
More cash in advance spares the time needed for mechanics, mechatronics &
software DIY hassle... which on the other hand are the most formative
activities to learn robotics for real.

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acbart
Looking over the robots they support, low cost means about "thousands of
dollars" in this context, right?

~~~
ssivark
Yeah, it's currently ~5k USD for a (pre-assembled) robot arm that is
marginally "useful" (and there are several brands/makers at that price point).
I've heard of some that are trying to push towards the ~3k price point, with
somewhat poorer tolerances.

I'm excited for the time in the near future when a useful robot arm costs
roughly as much as a good laptop i.e. ~1k USD.

At that point, it'll become feasible for hobbyists to get one each and start
playing around. Which will lead to an explosion in the variety of things
tried, and will positively feed back into creating a healthy community, tons
of software which makes it easier for the next set of people to get involved,
etc. Much like the PC revolution in the 80s/90s.

At the moment, they're kinda like overpriced toys (for a home user /
enthusiast point of view) without a killer app.

~~~
kortex
We need a breakthrough in low-speed, high torque, lightweight motors and
geardowns. Basically if we can get economies of scale up on BLDC motors with
higher numbers of poles (think hoverboard motors but lighter), and figure out
how to mass manufacture harmonic drives, that'll open up the door to all kinds
of low cost robotics.

Odriverobotics already has brought down the barrier to BLDC servomotor
control.

Or this thing:
[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8613852](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8613852)

~~~
craftinator
Two thoughts: 1) I haven't seen any clear literature on efficiency of
affordable servos. It seems like existing technology must be very efficient,
given the pretty uniform torque/power ratio I've seen across the servo market.

2) One of the biggest financial roadblocks I've run across in robotics isn't
about the torque available in affordable servos, it's about the ability to get
force feedback. Servos/motors are useless for the large set of tasks requiring
force feedback, without the additional complexity of building a current sensor
and calibrating it. We need a cheap servo with integrated force feedback and
an easy means of autocalibration (from a quick search, seems like this feature
usually doubles or tripples the cost of an identical servo).

~~~
kortex
Torque/efficiency is still a big issue. A coworker and I put together all the
math and specs for a robot which could "cook breakfast", just to see what a
PoC would take. For anything approaching human arm levels of strength, in that
form factor, you are looking at SWG servos. These are nominally 70-80%
efficient, but that drops after a few thousand cycles, if you operate in
higher loading regimes [1]. so cooling/maintenance is super important.
Planetary gears are also not great efficiency-wise and are heavier.

Force feedback is also super important and challenging.

We just need like, synthetic actin :) Disney is actually working on that [2].
yeah it looks super inefficient but so were vacuum tubes before transistors.

1]
[https://eeepitnl.tksc.jaxa.jp/mews/EN/19th/text/206.pdf&ved=...](https://eeepitnl.tksc.jaxa.jp/mews/EN/19th/text/206.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiHkd2B57HnAhVZaM0KHU_xAKUQFjAPegQIAxAF&usg=AOvVaw2F4XHlavPrQQiyKJMZSuwt)

2] [https://studios.disneyresearch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/0...](https://studios.disneyresearch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/03/High-Performance-Robotic-Muscles-from-Conductive-
Nylon-Sewing-Thread-Paper.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjG-
oCP6bHnAhXBHM0KHeT7B4YQFjAZegQIBhAF&usg=AOvVaw1T86dwb46W3evrawujoK5n)

~~~
craftinator
Interesting! Thank you for all the great information. I'm opening those links
from a mobile app, and both ended up as not found (not 404, but as the sites
internal unrecognized URL page). Are they live for you?

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ecmascript
Cool, but the main problem I have is that I don't have a robot to program and
the complexity to build one is way too high for me.

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joshvm
This is built on ROS by the looks of it. Most robotics users run everything in
simulations anyway (have a look at UR arms). At a basic level look at
Turtlebot. You can add all sorts of sensors, simulate environments and even
realistic physics.

Even with things like pre-defined movement areas and collision boxes, arm
planning software sometimes completely freaks out and produces weird plans
that would probably break things. So it's always good to visualise before
sending the commands to the physical system.

Gazebo is a common environment:
[https://community.arm.com/developer/research/b/articles/post...](https://community.arm.com/developer/research/b/articles/posts/do-
you-want-to-build-a-robot)

~~~
eismcc
Thank you! I didn’t realize it was that common. Seems very useful for building
robot AI without needing to keep your robot safe In the process.

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anentropic
anyone else wonder/worry what Facebook wants to do with robots...?

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mrfusion
How much does it cost to build the locobot?

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mrfusion
Is this an alternative to ros?

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beisner
It’s built on top of ROS

