What breaks and how often

Robots, unfortunately, tend to be expensive. And finding a robot that’s both capable of performing a wide variety of mobile manipulation tasks, and is affordable and “hackable”, is extremely difficult. Many different problems need to be addressed, from arm control to navigation to integrating your data collection strategy into hardware design. This can make it difficult for all but the most well-funded teams to “scale” real-world robotics research.

Fortunately, the team behind Build Your Own Robot has a solution. Manan Anjaria, Mahi Shafiullah, Jeff Cui, and Enes Erciyes joined us to talk about how they build a fully open-source mobile manipulator out of off-the-shelf parts, which has humanlike range of motion, and can perform a wide variety of tasks, all while being only roughly $10,000 to build.

Watch Episode 71 of RoboPapers, with Michael Cho and Chris Paxton, today to learn more!

Abstract

Recent advances in robot learning have generated significant interest in capable platforms that may eventually approach human-level competence. This interest, combined with the commoditization of actuators, has propelled growth in low-cost robotic platforms. However, the optimal form factor for mobile manipulation, especially on a budget, remains an open question. We introduce YOR, an open-source, low-cost mobile manipulator that integrates an omnidirectional base, a telescopic vertical lift, and two arms with grippers to achieve whole-body mobility and manipulation. Our design emphasizes modularity, ease of assembly using off-the-shelf components, and affordability, with a bill-of-materials cost under 10,000 USD. We demonstrate YOR's capability by completing tasks that require coordinated whole-body control, bimanual manipulation, and autonomous navigation. Overall, YOR offers competitive functionality for mobile manipulation research at a fraction of the cost of existing platforms. Project website: this https URL

Learn More

Project Page: https://yourownrobot.ai/

ArXiV: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11150

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robopapers.substack.com