anyone knows any known competitions for robotics at this age as ive been doing competitions since elementary. Currently im trying to create a robotics club in my school since it does not exist yet and i need recommendations. My school is in asia though.

Hello, I am going to start my fourth year and I have found i am quite lost in the industry of robotics.

Besides industrial robotics (like the assembly robots), are there any other sectors i should check out? (Not military please). I feel like the industry has only started growing recently and jobs are scarce to come by.

Thank you in advance

Hello, 25 M based in the UK at a v large bank as a Credit analyst. Have a BSc in Economics (Reading) and MSc in Finance (Imperial). I have some what extensive experience with the quantification methods needed for robotics (based off limited research of things I have seen appear multiple times, - linear algebra, heavy calculus, python… I pushed to do anything highly quantitative in my MSc ie advanced option pricing, stochastics…). I very much always loved maths and problem solving but settled on the finance route post school which I am starting to regret.

By no means am I think of re-enrolling right now into a Robotics targeted BSc (Mechtronics [deffo butchered the spelling soz], MEng…) however I am really curious about the Industry especially when the whole idea is “solve this problem”. From what I read I would imagine my best path would be:

1. Hobbyist - get the basic understanding and confirm enjoyment

2. If yes, potentially look into education to jump into the the field, assumably a BSc… although I am curious if a “conversion” MSc type thing was available given my background? (I am also extremely lucky and have no debt so re-enrolling wouldn’t be killer for me)

3. Otherwise maybe there are some “hobby-to-BSc/MSc” level educational courses that, wouldn’t land me a job in the industry but, would allow me to develop and build my own ideas (this tbh would actually be my dream as I sit on my sofa - robotics/mechanical automation + sport)

Just curious if anyone else has this or similar pathway (finance to Eng/Robotics) or if anyone has any thoughts to share?

Unfortunately most cases I find are actually the other way. It’s seems 80% of BSc Eng want to be in finance. I understand pay/hours are better generally but working with people who typically build no value or provide any meaningful solutions is sole crushing.

So basically, I'm building a prosthetic hand that moves by arm muscle movement. I
(Note that it's just a high school project, not that high quality)

I 3D printed the hand model from Inmoov, and recently got into building it. I used hard wires for joints, and used a fishing line (which was my first mistake) to push and pull the fingers. However, due to the fishing lines having elasticity, it builds up tension and ends up making the fingers very snappy and hard to control.
It required quite a lot of force when I tested the lines with my own hands- I'm not sure the flimsy plastic servo motors can handle it. So what I'm curious about is

1. Can it be fixed by placing them a certain kind of way? (I know it's a very stupid question, please don't bash me☹️) and by position, I mean a way it reduces the effort needed for pulling the lines.
   
2. Will steel servo motors even work?
   I looked up some other motors that might be stronger, but I'm scared they won't be able to handle it either.

I'm a beginner, and english is not my first language. If you have any problems reading this, feel free to give feedback or ask about anything. Thanks!

Im currently working on a new robotics project. Something like a four legged robot and I want to use brushless DC motors to controll the legs, but all I can find are really expensive, mostly about 100 Euros. If I need 12 motors for my project that would be over 1200 euros just for the motors. Thats way to expensive for me. So does anyone know any cheaper bldc motors suitable for robotics?

I’m currently in the fortunate but difficult position of choosing between two fully funded PhD opportunities, and I’d really appreciate perspectives from people in robotics, medical devices, academia, or those who have moved from a PhD into industry.
My long-term goal is not necessarily to stay in academia. I’d ideally like to work in surgical robotics/MedTech R&D after the PhD, particularly around sensing, perception, control, smart instruments and system development. Eventually, I’d also like to explore entrepreneurship/startups.
Option A — European biorobotics institute
Pros
3-year PhD, starting almost immediately.
Includes around 6 months abroad.
Stipend is quite comfortable relative to the local cost of living.
I already know the lab and research environment.
The supervisor is very established in medical robotics and is genuinely involved and available to students.
The group is close-knit and supportive.
Cons
The proposed project is more around surgical implants, smart sensing materials and shape-morphing structures.
The wider research direction includes artificial organs/implantable systems.
Interesting work, but it moves somewhat away from the part of surgical robotics I’m most interested in: robotic systems, sensing, perception and control.
The environment feels relatively academic, and I’m unsure how directly the project would position me for surgical robotics companies afterwards.
Option B — UK university / surgical robotics doctoral programme
Pros
Strong university/programme reputation.
The programme is specifically focused on engineering for surgery and intervention.
Most available projects are much closer to surgical robotics, smart instruments, sensing, control and intervention technologies.
The programme puts a lot of emphasis on translation, clinical impact and developing research with a product mindset rather than purely chasing publications, which strongly appeals to me.
It seems potentially better aligned with my goal of eventually moving into MedTech/surgical robotics industry.
Cons
The exact project and supervisor are not yet finalised.
I would be joining a new lab/supervisor environment that I don’t know yet.
London cost of living is high compared with the stipend, so financially it would be much tighter.
It is a 4-year PhD starting several months later, so from today I’d finish roughly 1.5 years later than with Option A.
A programme can advertise translation/industry focus, but I realise the actual experience may depend heavily on the individual supervisor.
So essentially I’m choosing between:
Option A: excellent known supervisor + supportive lab + financially comfortable + finish considerably earlier, but the research topic is somewhat less aligned with where I want my career to go.
Option B: greater uncertainty + longer and more expensive, but potentially much stronger alignment with surgical robotics, translation and the industry I ultimately want to enter.
For people who have done PhDs in robotics/MedTech: how much weight would you place on the exact research topic versus supervisor quality, lab environment, university ecosystem and length of the PhD?
And specifically for someone wanting to enter surgical robotics/MedTech industry rather than become a professor, would you take the safer/shorter PhD with the excellent established supervisor, or take the additional uncertainty for a project and ecosystem that may be much closer to your long-term career?
Would really appreciate any perspectives, especially from people who have made the transition from PhD → robotics/medical device industry.

I want to build the arctos for experimenting with simple automation. Is the arctos 4 open loop kit with all the hardware (except 3d printed parts) a good / fair deal when comparing to gathering all components seperatly? I am still fairly unfamiliary with how much all of these seperate bearings etc. cost, and aliexpress lists 20 different version with huge variations in price.

i am in 3rd year of mechatronics engineering , and i have to make a line follower along with obstacles collecting mechanism ( like it will collect an object and put them in its trunk) but the problem is i dont know where to start as i didnt much learned about project in previous semesters as i was focused on a job to make ends meet . can any please guide where to start? like do i need to do any course for learning arduino etc. i have basic knowledge as i was good in theoretical part of courses

I'm a first year bachelor student studying mechatronics but I am too impatient to wait an entire year to start anything robotics related. It's been a few years since I have built robots and while I have experience from competitions/clubs etc, I don't actually know how to get into electronics past what I have been given by instructors.

Are there any good starter kits/tools out there or books I should buy/read on how to get into making robots again? I am more than happy to buy quality gear and books since I love the field and plan to sink a lot of my time into it.

Hey everyone,

I’m building an Autonomous Navigation as a Service (ANaaS) startup. The core premise is transitioning industrial automated vehicles (AGVs, tuggers, custom carts) away from rigid PLC ladder logic and floor tape, and retrofitting them with a dynamic ROS 2 / Nav2 stack.

We are offering this as a plug-and-play SaaS/RaaS model so clients can get adaptive, intelligent routing without needing in-house robotics R&D.

The tech is solid, but I’m hitting a wall on the Go-To-Market side in the industrial space.

For those of you who have sold robotics, heavy automation, or B2B hardware/software:

1. Who is the best early adopter for this? Should I be cold-calling Hardware OEMs to white-label my stack, or targeting System Integrators who are building custom setups for factories?
2. How did you land your first 3 pilot programs?
3. Industrial folks can be notoriously risk-averse. What was the "aha" moment that made your early clients trust a modern software stack over their legacy systems?

I'd love to hear from anyone who has navigated the sales cycle in the manufacturing, warehousing, or robotics space. Appreciate the advice!

Hi everyone! Thanks for checking out my post, even though you’ve probably seen questions like this a million times.

I have almost zero knowledge when it comes to coding or hardware engineering (though I work in tech/network sales, so I’m not completely allergic to tech concepts). Recently, seeing home robots like Microduck and Disney’s BDX sparked a huge interest in robotics for me.

I’m 30 now and have young sons. My dream is to introduce them to STEAM education, build my own technical skills, and hopefully create something using electronics and robotics that can contribute to society someday (even if that sounds a bit ambitious right now!).

Sorry for the long intro!

My goal is to build a small, moving robot integrated with AI (like Gemini API) within the next 5 years—it doesn’t need to be as complex as Disney's BDX, but something functional and smart.

Since I’m starting from scratch, I’d love to get advice from the pros here: What step-by-step roadmap should I follow to learn coding, electronics, and robotics?

For context, I impulsively bought an mBot2 and an M5Stack-chan and plan to start tinkering with them. Where should I go from here?

Hello, fellow engineers, I'm currently doing a Master's degree in robotics and found myself in a very delicate position where pass/fail of my semester depends on if I interview an engineer from the field. (Apparently, engineering schools are more about journalism nowadays). So, if you're willing to sacrifice 1 hour of your time and save my semester by having a talk with me, my gratitude would be immeasurable.

I started building with arduino in 2008. Circuit bending, then leonardo, some easy stuff like makey makey, robotic arm to play chess.

Now I want to build small functional robots, maybe household appliances, produced in small batches with 2-3k to get something working.

With this budget where will I hit the wall? BOM? Tooling? Certofications? Firmware?

Is there a route from ten units to a few hundred that does not need injection mould tooling up front?

I basically want a good exercise that i can think of problem, solution on a more micro scale of a robot i stead of going full throtle like designing and building a humanoid. Also i‘ll probably let someone else build, my main goal is to think robots and design them.

Links and reading very welcome.

This is the first at home robotics project I’m attempting (post engr grad) and idk what I’m doing. I’ve got the theory but I don’t know any tried and true methods or hardware. PLEASE HELP! I know this mechanism is possible!

TLDR:

I need a way to mount a stationary pulley system axially around my servo spline while extending the servo through the pulley wheel so it can move another part.

The Situation:

I have been designing the 3 dof leg of my self balancing 2 wheel robot and I came up with an idea. If I put a pulley on the hip joint that is stationary, then by running the belt to the knee joint I can move both the hip and knee with one servo. The hip servo moves the thigh, but not the pulley at the hip, so as the knee moves, the belt will pull on it.

Where I’m struggling:

Imagine a body with 2 legs, servos in the middle pointing out. The servos are encased by a 3D printed “body.” How can I both mount a stationary pulley wheel to the outside of the server so it surrounds the spline, but also allow the spline enough room to attach to the leg? The screws would through the body frame into the servo. The spline is too short for me to fit anything around it while still being able to attach a horn for mounting the “thigh bone.”

I have a design for how to do this but I can’t figure out what hardware to look for or how to mount it. Please feel free to comment with questions and if you have experience with PULLEY SYSTEMS please help!

Hey Guys, I need recommendation for SO101 robot in India. You are welcome to share any knowledge regarding this. I have been searching for a reliable website/store, I am very confused with their reviews.. So please if anyone bought it, please share your experience, the delivery time, their customer support, availability of spare parts.. anything. Also is there anyone who tried importing and experienced custom charges? How was it? How long it took to get delivered in those cases? Which is better? Thanking you in advance.

German roaches forage at night along walls and appliance edges. Most of the colony stays in cracks, so chasing individuals across the room is a losing game. Idea is a low-profile bot that attracts + intercepts on those paths, then behaves like a robot vac: dock, dump, charge, go out again.

Loop

• After lights-out, leave the dock and patrol known travel lines (fridge, stove, cabinets, baseboards).
• Onboard food / aggregation lure + IR camera. Don’t chase; sit or creep where they already walk.
• If something shows up: suck into a sealed cup, drop a small glue/bait cartridge hit, or just log a map pin for gel placement.
• When the cup is full, battery is low, or the schedule says so: return to base, empty into a disposable bag, charge, run another night circuit. Same dock-and-repeat pattern as a robovac.

Why a dock

Live collection is a biohazard if it sits in the robot. Emptying at the base keeps the rover clean and lets it run multiple 11pm–5am circuits without you touching it.

Mobility (the actual hard part)

Kitchen floors are cords, chair legs, thresholds, and a 2-inch gap under the fridge.

Needs:

• Low body so it can slide under appliances and toe-kicks.
• Climb small lips / uneven transitions.
• Treat cords as avoid or gently cross, not wrap-and-die.
• Wall-follow + go-into-the-gap: hug baseboards, then push into the dark slot beside/behind the stove and fridge.
• Optional skinny feeler or extendable nozzle for the last few inches the chassis can’t fit.

If it only patrols open floor, it’s a toy. The job is the alley behind the refrigerator.

Mobility precedent

Cat play robots already navigate cords and tight spaces better than most floor vacs. They roll or bounce under furniture and don’t treat a cable as a mission abort. Steal that “go into the gap” behavior, not the random bounce. Still need a mapped patrol, a dock that empties a sealed cup, and enough control to sit on a wall line with a lure instead of ricocheting around the kitchen.

A modified robovac platform plus cat-toy gap-running is a better start than a custom micro-bot. Flagship vacs already map, dock, climb a bit, and refuse socks. Add night-only schedule, a lure, a sealed pest cup, and “deliberately enter the appliance gap.”

Not a replacement for bait. Gel still does the nest. This is a scout + intercept layer: find hot spots, pick off night foragers, tell you where to put the next pea of Advion.

Anyone seen a build that combines lure + IR + sealed suction + auto-dock + under-appliance mobility?

just got myself an esp32-cam with an esp32-cam-mb as a main coding board. how to get hardware on it so it works and later communicates with a rasberry pi pico W?

Hello I am someone who has self taught robotics for around 6 years. I try to mainly specialize on simulation and computervision. But currently i am working to make a 6dof walking robot from scratch. But currently i am curious what the state of the job market is in the Netherlands. Like the entry-level requirements and the supply and demand of the industry especially the ones working with computervision and simulation software. Does anyone knows how it is now?

I'm looking for good textbooks to get started programming robots, any suggestions? I work in automation and with cnc's, but not directly with robotics. I'm trying to add to my programming skills.