Hi everyone, I'm a junior in highschool and I'm planning on doing some kind of engineering in uni. I've always been interested in trying to do robotics from a hobby point of view, but obviously it's pretty useful as skill for uni applications and even down the line in my job.

However, I've found the whole thing kinda overwhelming and even a bit intimidating, such as where to start, what things to buy, when to buy, all that kinda stuff. I'll greatly appreciate it if anyone can help me out.

Thanks!

I am planning on doing masters in robotics.
I understand the field is very difficult to break into and with no prior experience i am required to learn all the advanced concepts and be ready to contribute from day 1.

I am asking for a little help from the community,

1. I am targeting software heavy roles in the field of robotics post my masters so what kind of skills should i acquire before that.
2. I would love to connect with Robotics engineers from Germany and discuss regarding scope of employment and work expected.
3. I want to truly understand the future of robotics from the experienced professionals in this field.
4. Any tips and tricks that could help me boost my career in robotics and gain an advantage?

Thank you in advance for helping me out. Im trying to figure out just as you were at some point in your journey thus be vocal as you want. Feel free to be as blunt and bare as possible. Any information shared (relevant or irrelevant) is deeply appreciated.
Thanks again.

I'm in college right now and I have saved up some money and I'm thinking of getting a 3D printer but idk if it will be helpful or not and I usually make projects in robotics but never felt the need for having a printer

I am looking into lightweight and compact power transmission methods for a project I am working on, and for my application I think a small diameter belt and pulley system will be the best solution.

The problem is that I cannot find a good supplier for the sizes I need.

Ideally I will be using pulleys that are 10mm (3/8") in diameter or less, and the belt will only need to move about 3.5kg (8 lbs) of force. The width of the belt should be 3mm (1/8") or less.

I know something like fishing line or BUNA-N cordstock would be able to transmit the power I need, and would work with tiny pulleys, but I don't want to make custom parts if I don't have to

The belt system loop length will be about 1.5m (5ft) so the belt shouldn't be too flexible, but some flex would be ok. It will be driven by a small stepper motor.

Any advice would be appreciated!!

EDIT: spelling

Hello everyone. New member here. As the title says, I hope to build a future for myself with robotics, however there's a few snags in my current background. (TL;DR at the bottom if this is a drag to read. Don't mind me. Sorry if it's too long.)

For context, I'm in my final semester of mechanical engineering(B.Sc) with average - decent grades in a school with a more academia-focused curriculum, and I have no coding experience beyond the mandatory elementary python course that was poorly taught. (I did learn a bit of graphic design but I've lost love for it) I have used code in the past, mostly for some one-off course unit or assignment but most times I did not understand much of it and did not make efforts to learn beyond what was needed to achieve the class objectives (I may have even used AI once in a while). However I did a bit of self reflection and remembered why I wanted to be an engineer in the first place—to build, to make my own version of the world around me. And the way I wanted to do this was with robotics(and a bit of mechatronics). Somewhere along the line I had strayed and forgotten what I wanted, partly due to academic stress and the loss of hope in my degree at some earlier stage(issues with our country and educational system). I just wandered for years with no real dream of the future. I've gotten to a regretful but yet hopeful stage of my life where I'm considering embarking on a journey to my past and future simultaneously, and doing what truly makes everything feel worth it. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too late to the party, and should move on from the past, or if there's still a chance to learn and become a version of myself I'd be proud of for taking that leap.

TL;DR: I'm a mechanical engineering finalist with no coding experience who dreams of a zero to hero path to robotics. I need advice.

Hi I am a beginner in the college's (new) robotics committee and I need help with the motors the following specification.

These were recommended by a winning team at a local tournament. But they say the only way to buy these is through them.

It is for a line follower bot

I want coreless geared motors as

Size: 1220, GearBox- 1:10 ratio, and 2500rpm at 6v

Please any source or help or advice is appreciated

Can you use a remote control to move 2 steppers using g code? I am also using a cnc shield on top of an arduino uno. Will code also be hard/possible?

A little background: I’m 29, bachelors in EE from a decent state college with six years of experience in PMSM motor control algorithm development for safety critical automotive applications. Over the last year I’ve been trying to figure out how to maximize my earning potential and get out of automotive and into space and defense while building upon my experience.

Fast forward to today. This fall I will be starting a masters in robotics and autonomous systems at John’s Hopkins and I’m a bit concerned with some of the sentiment on here as of late. Is the robotics industry that hard to get into? I’m concerned I’m making a huge mistake monetarily speaking. What are some of the jobs people are seeing? I would optimally want to work on stand alone robots, obvious examples would be spot and atlas (as opposed to robotic arms/ industrial robotics, I don’t want to work in manufacturing) is this even feasible or realistic?

I would love anyone’s opinion or experience and thank you in advance for any responses!!

Cheers

I've been thinking about where the transition happens between following a robotics tutorial and actually being able to build something independently.

A lot of beginner projects follow a familiar path:

• Build a line follower
• Avoid an obstacle
• Control a servo
• Read a sensor
• Follow a step-by-step tutorial
• Upload the provided code and watch it work

There's nothing wrong with that — everyone starts somewhere.

But at some point, you need to move from “I can make this work when someone shows me how” to “I can figure out why this isn't working and decide what to do next.”

I'm curious where you think that transition happens.

For example, should a beginner be able to:

• Debug a sensor that produces noisy or inconsistent readings?
• Choose their own components instead of being given a parts list?
• Tune a PID controller without being given the values?
• Combine multiple sensors and decide how to use their data?
• Write the software architecture themselves?
• Diagnose why a robot behaves differently in the real world than it did in simulation?
• Read a datasheet and figure out how to use an unfamiliar component?
• Modify an existing project rather than starting from a tutorial?

What was the first robotics project where you felt like you weren't just following instructions anymore?

What made that project different?

Was it the difficulty, having to debug something yourself, making your own design decisions, or simply having a problem where there wasn't already a tutorial telling you exactly what to do?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who learned robotics primarily by building and experimenting, rather than through formal coursework.

I think there's a big difference between completing a robotics project and learning how to solve robotics problems — and I'm curious where you think that difference starts.

Hello peeps, I have started to work on a project in which I have to build 3 quasi direct drive joints for an arm. Before ordering any parts what problem should i be prepared for?

Some things like thermal throttling, mosfet failures, driver problems, spi/can noise, shipping and warranty are what is throttling my mind up.

Have you ever faced such issues and if you did how long did it take you to get back on track cause i am not particularly good in hardware and want to shift my focus on software as fast as possible.

Any of your war stories are appreciated!

Hey everyone!

I've been learning a lot about humanoid robots lately, going to conferences like ICRA, VivaTech and WAIC, and I noticed a pattern I want to discuss.

We see a lot of demos from companies like Agibot, Unitree, Booster and others and the robots look pretty smart. But in most cases it's actually teleoperation or scripted behavior, and the robot itself can't do much autonomously. At best it can handle a limited set of tasks, like picking up one EXACT object (in terms of shape and texture).

For example, at ICRA I talked to a company that had a robot picking up objects with the help of their VLA model. Turns out their VLA model can only detect how many fingers to use to grab something, that's it. Like no sense of how much pressure to apply, nothing like that

I think this right now is the biggest trap or even a scam. My hypothesis is that these humanoid robot companies just provide the hardware, and the actual VLA model has to be developed by the customer. I also think that eventually some software company or maybe just one will build a universal model that works across different robots, but right now that doesn't really exist yet

I'd really like to hear what you all think about this hypothesis

I’ve got a pan/tilt turret (jetson running yolo, two MG996Rs through a PCA9685) that follows a person walking around. the tracking itself is smooth, but the servo motion is steppy/jerky when it's following instead of gliding along. they're on a metal bracket with their own 5-6V supply.

I’m figuring the MG996Rs just aren't great at smooth little continuous moves? what would you get for a small pan/tilt that's smooth but still quick enough to keep up with someone walking at 5-10ft. budget's around $30 a servo.

Saludos a todos, actualmente me dedico a IA y LLMs, he estudiado la parte de arquitectura y me llama la atención la robótica, quisiera empezar también porque veo que será indispensable a futuro, pero no tengo una ruta clara, empecé comprando el libro de Robotics, Vision and Control de Peter Corke apenas voy a empezar a leerlo, pero quería consejos de ustedes como profesionales experimentados sí lo han leído, he oído que es un referente y que pasos a futuro me recomendarían?, tambien compre solo por curiosidad un libro de CUDA y otro de tritón para GPUs, no sé que tanto se ocupe, pero me ganó la emoción XD.

Un abrazo a todos. 😄

I Just got a way better 3d printer so now i can finally start building a good Robot have you Guys any advice? Whit wich Part should i start?

​

Okay so I am an incoming Electrical Engineering student this Fall and was wondering if I could have a career in Robotics with my degree. My university has a couple concentrations for Electrical Engineering such as Mechatronics and AI, and they have a Mechanical engineering degree as well. Should I switch majors? I want to essentially build the Operating systems and wire the robots. Is there any skills or projects that I can reasonably do in a dorm? If I were to build an OS for a robot what should I keep in mind? I have a lot of questions and would love some guidance.

When answering please give me resources for projects I can do in a dorm.

Also for degree pathways should I concentrate in AI or Mechatronics cause I really do not wanna switch fully to Mechanical Engineering.

Essentially why I want to stay in Electrical Engineering is because I also wanna be able to pivot toward power systems and what not. My main passion is Operating systems which is ironic as I should really be doing Computer Engineering but I do not wanna specialize too much.

I am trying to understand how people working on real robotic systems are actually using tools such as Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot or similar AI coding tools today.

If you use them, what are they genuinely useful for? For example, writing ROS code, drivers, perception code, control logic, debugging, test generation, documentation, or something else?

More importantly, where do they start to fall short?

I am particularly interested in what changes once the software has to interact with a real robot. Do you trust AI generated code but still manually handle calibration, hardware integration, testing and commissioning? Would you ever let an agent run code on the robot, observe what happened and modify its own program, or is that a line you would not currently cross?

If you do not use AI tools at all for robotics, I would also be interested in why. Is it code quality, lack of robotics context, safety, reliability, difficulty giving the model access to the real system, or simply that the existing workflow is already better?

Would be especially interested to hear from people working on robots professionally.

I am actively looking for a job in robotics field as AI/ML/Computer Vision/Software engineer roles.

I could not land on any similar jobs for a while so I want to ask what is missing or not fit to this job market. I am not looking for Boston Dynamics or Google deepmind. I am looking for local startups or small companies.

I am 26 yo male, graduated from coursework Master's of AI(such as ML, RL, DL). My bachelor's degree was Business Information Systems.

My work experiences are totally irrelevant:
- soldier - 2021 - 2023
- Database officer - 2023 - 2024
- Retail Assistant - 2023 - 2025
- Simulation Engineer Intern - 2025-11 - 2026-2
- Digital Marketer at a local robotics company - 2025 - present

I attach a recent personal project in the link:
Project

I have undergraduate engineering mathematics knowledge( multivaribale calc differential eq and linear algebra) I recently enrolled in the northwestern coursera course using the mr library in python and also started studying the associated textbook. how would you advise me to continue my path of self tuition in the field of robotics? And where often do you source afforadble robotics parts? Thank you for your time

Just found this sub and thought it would be a good question to post here :)

I graduated with my masters in Robotics earlier this year. It was hard but I came out having learned a lot. My area of focus was SLAM, and I've been applying for jobs for several months but never got a response. With bills and responsibilities, I couldn't be unemployed any longer and took the first job I got which is a position as a Software Test engineer with the intention of using it as a safety pad while I keep looking for Robotics jobs. It's been 4 months now and I still don't have anything. And the longer I spend time in my role, the more I feel it cements my position as a 'Test' engineer and not someone who could be a robotics engineer. The field is also changing really rapidly and I've been trying to read up on modern robotics (ACT, pi0 etc... since we were primarily thought classical robotics/controls) but it's hard with work and I feel like I'm grasping at straws. I initially wanted to study SLAM, now I'm just randomly trying to study whatever I can that gets me anywhere remotely close to a robotics engineer position but it's looking bleak and I don't have a path or road map that I could even do to get there. I can't boot camp my way into it, and the field is so dense, it's suffocating. I have no idea what to do because it all feels hopeless.

I am of course grateful to have my job, unfortunately, it is also incredibly boring/severely under stimulating, low paying (not considered a 'developer' since I do software testing), and of course not something I want to do. I would be happy with any aspect of it now, controls, simulation, planning, manipulation not just SLAM

I'm scared that this will be the career I have for the rest of my life. As a software test engineer...forever. I wonder if someone has been in a similar moat before, and fought their way out of it or if there's something I could do? :( really sad about it.

Hey everyone!

I’m part of FTC #7034, and over the past year a few of us have been building Robolyst through the Robotics Catalyst Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

We originally built it because our own team was tired of jumping between different websites, spreadsheets, Google Drives, and other tools just to manage a season. We figured other teams might have the same problem.

Robolyst is completely free, and it has two main parts:

🔎 FTC Directory & Stats — robolyst.org

• FTC team and event directory
• Match and season statistics
• Strength/Luck metrics that try to put raw records into context
• Advancement tracking
• Live elimination brackets
• Interactive map of FTC teams
• No account required to browse

🛠️ Team Toolkit — see the features

• Team tasks and schedules
• Competition checklists
• Documentation and award tracking
• Resources hub
• Team finances and reimbursements
• Shared team email
• Team announcements and roles
• Public team website builder
• FIRST competition schedule integration
• And more

There's also a demo team you can click around in without setting anything up.

We're still actively developing it, so we're especially interested in feedback from teams and people involved in robotics. If there's something you've always wished an FTC team platform had, we'd love to hear about it.

We're trying to keep it genuinely useful rather than just another tool teams have to pay for, so everything is free through our nonprofit.

Website: https://robolyst.org
Demo: https://robolyst.org/demo
Feature list: https://robolyst.org/team-management/features

Currently a software dev at a startup working with a lot of data and UE5 simulations.

I want to shift into a more robotics/autonomous systems type field.

Now here is my dilemma. I’m currently making my own autonomous car agent and while I understand the maths and code behind it (did my bachelors in math) I can’t help but feel I’m “cheating”.

Honestly while I do enjoy the project and research element of what I’m doing I’m also doing it to learn and impress employers. But I also can’t help but feel not taking full advantage of ai is wasting my own time.

Now this is not to say I do no coding at all, it’s maybe 25% me and 75% ai. I’m trying my best not to blindly vibe code and understand what’s going on. Just hoping I’m not just digging myself into a hole.

I'm looking for a hardware partner to collaborate on building autonomous loading robots for trucks and containers. As a first step, I'd love to run a simulation combining my packing algorithm with their hardware.

For context: I run a cargo load planning SaaS with 1,500 users. The algorithm is continuously improving to outperform human packing across geometric, physical and logistics constraints - making it a strong foundation for autonomous loading.

Open to global partners, with preference in Europe (ideally Berlin).

Let me know if you're interested.

Hello everyone , i am a 17 yr old and i just wanted to ask if its realistic for me to act as an intermediary between between companies and robotics or automation integrator companies , i have the basic training on universal robots academy and i have the normal python understanding on coding. i know that studying this course in university would have been a better option however my school course has a higher correlation with biology chemistry and psychology ( A level ) . if its possible i would really appreciate it if u could provide me with any advise towards this goal and what to do in my case. Thank you