r/shittyrobots
NASA Lunabotics 2026 - UNH LunaCats presents ATLAS 2.0, a regolith mining construction prototype.
I worked on the 3D printed wheels and chain guard. The tire is 85a TPU, and the hub is ABS. The tire membrane gets pulled over the inner diameter of the hub, creating a hard on soft seal, keeping iron dense regolith simulator out of the limit switches.
We use a drum to mine and deposit remote piles (berms). Here you can see the robot mining and traveling to another location via teleoperation for deposition.
We drove to Florida (UCF) from New Hampshire to compete. Unfortunately, during our second run, the robot did not move. In the first run it did, however the linear actuation for the drum to move close to the regolith didn’t work and we couldn’t mine. A poor performance for this year, which was quickly corrected after competing, as seen here.
u/Diogenes_Will — 2 days ago
The BBC uses robo-cameras disguised as dung heaps to film wildlife up close.
u/Bimblelina — 6 days ago
I 3D-printed a table-top mechanized claw to spin my coffee mug
Growing up, my father and I watched BattleBots quite often. During the fights where robots were being shredded to pieces, I noticed there was a giant, robotic, claw trophy stand in the background that I thought was more impressive than the bots themselves. I wanted one for myself, but after looking into it some more, I realized the stand is massive, heavy, and expensive. I decided that I could attempt to make one myself, but a smaller, cheaper desktop version to rotate my coffee mug (because why not!).
If you want to learn more about the methods I developed for this project, feel free to check it out on my GitHub account, as it is open source: https://github.com/drpykachu/Claw-Stand
u/CouchieWouchie — 8 days ago
What 90 minutes of unstructured free play with robot dogs taught us about kids and robotics
Two weeks ago we brought Bittle X, Bittle X+Arm, and Nybble Q to the Robot Zoo + Science Slam at Tinker Coop, a community makerspace in Berkeley. Kiddies who had never touched these robots before controlled them via mobile app and micro:bit controller.
No lesson plan. No structured activity. Just free play.
Within 60 seconds they'd invented interactions we never designed for — riding robots on other robots, triggering backflips, watching a robot self-right after being knocked over. The stress testing was relentless. Every robot survived.
What struck me: the kids who engaged most deeply weren't necessarily the ones with prior coding experience. They were the ones who weren't afraid to try something that might break.
The robots run on OpenCat — open-source, programmable via Python, C++, or block-based coding. Source: github.com/PetoiCamp/OpenCat
Has anyone here used quadruped robots in a classroom or informal learning setting? Curious what structured vs unstructured approaches worked best.
u/PetoiCamp — 4 days ago
diy RC Lego Wall-E
Decided 6 months ago to make this tiny lego robot fully RC. What do you guys think? :o
Made a vid on yt (crostplay2) how this was made.
u/Crostplay_Florent — 8 days ago
Artificial robotic mouth can replicate human voice by contorting parts, similar to a human vs. using software
u/2021isevenworse — 10 days ago
u/JollyGreenJarju — 13 days ago
Beautiful humanoid robot yoga flexibility is important
u/Affectionate_Read804 — 13 days ago
▲ 0 r/shittyrobots
(REAL WORLD SIGHTINGS) HUMANOID ROBOTS IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
(The following article was written without the use of ChatGPT, etc.)
Hello
There has been another ‘real world’ Humanoid Robot citing in the US. On the first of May, a Humanoid called ‘Benji’ was seen randomly walking down the street in Baltimore, Maryland.
This Baltimore sighting brings the total of State-by-State sightings to SIX - in the last 24 months (California, Texas, Michigan, New York, Washington DC, and [now] Maryland.)
Though these Humanoids represent a handful of distinct companies, the general aim of these street sightings is clear: to slowly ease these tools into our lives.
It’s hard to tell whether the manufacturers are hoping to minimally scare the public - or whether they, the people who manufacturer these robots, feel the need to be tentative in the great unveiling specifically because they aren't confident in the long term ramifications of their creation. I suspect all of the above.
Sincerely,
Michael Christensen-
u/Puzzleheaded_Pool578 — 12 days ago