A bit of an aside, but how hard is it to get into building RC aeroplanes, compared to FPV copter drones?

It's not exactly on topic (other than fun ideas, begetting fun ideas), but a USB-C/WiFi driven typewriter would be a hoot.

EDIT: Found [0]

And for the reverse ... boom! (click! clack!) [1]

[0] https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/turn-a-typewriter...

[1] https://www.usbtypewriter.com

But I’m routing for you!

Beyond that, things that appeal to me are basically anything which increase the likelihood I can accomplish high dexterous fine motor control skills, for things like tinkering and DIY assembly. I think that would include extra wrist DOF and a longer-reach variant.

Integrated cameras are an interesting idea, but I'd like to be able to swap them out for my own.

My dream is to have some sort of multi-arm table at home. I imagine holding a circuit board, small component, soldering iron, and wire with four robotic arms I control with shaky hands from my laptop. :D

As a roboticist, what I'd vote for, in order, is:

- more degrees of freedom

- interchangeable tools, either an actual tool changer (unlikely at the price point) or a fixed bolt pattern with electronic passthroughs

- better joint sensing, e.g. absolute encoders, joint torque sensing

- fingertip force sensing

I'm sure there's an extra fee but it's sometimes just impossible to order things if you're a big organization from small sites like this.

Would you please provide more info on what's involved for the kit? Ranges are okay.

- you recorded precise arm-movement using leader-arm - for each combination of source- and target- receptacles/board-positions (looking at the shim visible in the video, which I assume ensures the exact relative position of the arm and chess-board);

- the recorded trajectories are then exposed as MCP-based functions?

Bought the kit. Thank you for the great price! Are table-clamps included?

Thank you so much for everyone’s support. My top priority now is to get all the orders shipped on time and with high quality.

I thought your product page could use a slightly nicer UI. - I'm building an app that let's people spin up multiple variations of their pages and easily implement new UIs. - I like to put HN websites through it whilst I'm training it up to see if I can improve them.

here's what my app came up with for your site: https://streamable.com/vbby9q

If you want the html + css, it's here free of charge, I've split each one up with a ## Variation 1/2.. etc.. just let me know what you think - https://pastebin.com/WGNieVmq

Flying is pretty different, though. If you're used to a copter that will just stay put when you release the controls, flying planes will be an adjustment.

That being said, I enjoyed every moment flying my planes. I built and flew quite a few quadcopters but they never felt that free because there's always that control algorithm between the pilot and the motors, while aeroplanes are basically just mapping the movement of the joystick to the servos. I believe the UK has a lot of great local clubs, and I believe that's the best place to get started.

Side note, when your son gets more experience in the field, he might wanna build his own gas turbine to power his planes. And this association based in UK is the best on this planet: https://www.gtba.co.uk

For UK delivery, let me look into how to set up international shipping. Will get back to you by end of the day.

To get better accuracy, if sticking with this kind of RC servo, it's basically required to have two servos per joint to preload each other to kill that wiggle room. It's something I've been calculating, but I just can't figure out a way to offer it at a good price.

Interestingly, for arms that are popular in academia, even when the price goes to $10k (like ARX or Trossen), the wiggle room is still there (better, but still there).

The main difference in building planes is you have to pay attention to center-of-gravity much more; minute differences will make the difference between your plane flying amazingly, like a brick (nose heavy), or not at all (tail heavy). There's also more work to do in setting control linkages and surface throws. But, overall, it's not too tough with most models.

Takeoff with planes can be very stressful the first few times; you have to choose between ground/runway takeoff, which typically results in a very inefficient model due to landing gear drag and is prone to flipping over, throwing the plane by hand, which requires practice and can be quite hazardous with a "pusher" style plane with the prop at the back, and building some kind of bungee launcher, which you then have to set up and lug around.

Then you have to decide how to fly - line of sight or FPV. Line of sight flying is quite an acquired skill and has a very steep learning curve - you basically have to learn to "become the plane" and understand how your control stick inputs are affecting the attitude of the plane without being able to see it very well.

FPV plane flying, while less popular than LOS, is very easy and much more rewarding IMO. The reaction time in all but the most extreme plane stunt flying is much less dramatic than in FPV quads.

And, due to quirks of the general hobby flight control software scene, most hobby FPV planes have a working loiter-in-a-circle setting while most FPV quads have a barely-functional GPS rescue mode and little to no ability to actually hover (it's very rare for an FPV quad to "just stay put"; this is the realm of camera drones).

I fly FPV quads when I need a focus/adrenalin boost and FPV planes when I just want to relax and chill. You can fly planes in an adrenalin style, but they're much more conducive to just looking at the scenery and goofing around. Massive bonus points that most plane builds are almost silent compared to an FPV quad so you don't worry about bothering people so much.

http://wrightbrothersrc.com/products/gambler.htm

If the goal is the flying. You can't go wrong with an easy star. I've crashed mine a million times. You just patch it back together humpty dumpty style with thick CA + accelerant. Bonus points for the prop being in the back, so if you run into stuff you (probably) won't draw blood.

https://mrmpxhobbies.com/product/rr-easystar-3/

Note that the hobby does require some skill w/ flying and need some level of risk management. There are cords that let you plug your transmitter into a computer/fly over a simulation that can help with the former.

Also, the servos we are using actually have a version that has lower torque/force output, which would be safer for students but also limit what they can do with it. Would you be interested in the "safer" version for classes?

This product is largely based on the SO-101. With all the improved designs, let's say it would still take 2 to 4 hours, depending on your experience.

If you fully control the environment: exact positions of arm-base and all objects which it interacts with - you can just replay the trajectory on the follower-arm. No ML necessary.

You can use LLM to decide which trajectories to replay and in which order based on long-horizon instruction.

The post says "kit that keeps LeRobot SO-101’s kinematics" so it's probably very similar to [1] namely 5DOF and a gripper, using STS3215 servos [2]

> As a roboticist, what I'd vote for, in order, is:

As they are making a robot at the $219 price point, I very much doubt they have the money to add anything to the design.

[1] https://huggingface.co/docs/lerobot/so101 [2] https://uk.robotshop.com/products/magnetic-encoding-servo-st...

• A tool changer is a great suggestion. A few of my friends are working on kinematic couplings, which would be ideal for this. I’ll need to give some thought to how to pass electrical signals and power to the tool, while also keeping it lightweight.

• Could you share what functionality you want in terms of encoders? The ST3215 uses 12-bit magnetic encoders, which can retain position after power loss. Are you looking for higher resolution? For torque sensing, if the order volume is large, I can add this for just a $20-30 price increase.

• Finger tip force sensing: Is this for applications like picking up an egg?

$200 is a really nice entry-price point. If I'm being honest, I'm marginally interested in this, but doubt that I'd actually use it too much. But the price point is justifiable for someone who is just interested in it from a learning point of view (if I bought this, used it a few times and learned a bit more about AI as it relates to robotics, it'd have paid itself off easily).

Rooting for you to succeed.

For stuff like this, it would be cool if you had a hosted demo of what you clicked through in the video.