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Comment by aliljet | Hacker News Reader

Robotics is such a lovely world. For the hobbyists, I'm really curious about how to get the home-brew robotics training lab working at home? The last time I reviewd this, you'd spend thousands of dollars just to get a reasonable robotic arm. Right now, if work is relegated to the rich research departments of mega corporations, this certainly doesn't seem more interesting than a corporate press release..

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This is false to very large degree, you have simulations for robotics, and you can buy/build your self cheaper versions.

It is also likely even after you purchase a physical arm you'd prefer to use the simulation as the feedback loop is both testable and much faster.

What are some good open source simulators suitable for robotics development?

(preferably a physics simulator library, not an entire framework)

PyBullet (I guess Bullet more broadly) sees a lot of use

> work is relegated to the rich research departments of mega corporations

idk there is plenty of universities that have robotics labs.. Probably the best value is to apply for masters etc if you are interested in that..

Someone else mentioned sims - Mujoco is pretty common and you'll want to learn ROS anyway. Also robotics doesn't mean just arms, you can play with navigation and perception algorithms with a single camera.

Good off-the-shelf arms are low thousands last time I looked. You can DIY for $1-2k https://www.anninrobotics.com/robot-kits

Depends on what part of robotics you want to explore. You can get a quadruped with an arm for around 400-1000$ if you don't mind it being small, and with a limited set of sensors.

It becomes expensive when you want an robot arm with high dexterity and torque-sensors, which is often a requirement for some tasks, but position-based control can be done on cheaper models.

I thought by now there'd be kits like plastic airplane models. Injection-mold a bunch of parts, connected by sprues, and throw in the odd bits of (metal) hardware where they are critical to the whole.

Are you taking about the unitree quadrupeds?

Quadruped with an arm for <$1000 would be a steal. Got any recommendations?

With emphasis on "small" I got one called XGO mini 2 (and 1) that I sponsored on Kickstarter, which had it at half the price (400$ ish) but it's around $800 here[1].

It runs on Raspberry Pi which is a big +, as version 1 was running on custom hardware. People had to plug a Jetson Nano or other device to run their code (such as this [2]). It comes with their own App, connected via bluetooth, for simple commands too.

I (and most kickstart backers) funded/bought it for either hobby or research purpose (some backers were from labs) so if you're looking for *practical* application this one might be a bit too weak.

But version 1&2 did come with a processing power that could run YOLO detection so there's enough power to test things out and learn.

[1] https://www.robotshop.com/products/xgo-mini-2-quadruped-robo... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqfwCwu4-Rc

wow, this looks better at first glance then mini pupper 2.

Does it has servos feedback too ?

Is there any reason why anthropomorphic is needed for an enjoyable hobby? Get an Arduino, a couple of servos, make a claw that grips on things.

Impressive dog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zPvT0ig1VM

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