Program a sub-$2k personal robot
Hey, we’re Axel and Vignesh, cofounders of Innate (https://www.innate.bot/). Task: Hey, we’re Axel and Vignesh, cofounders of Innate (https://www.innate.bot/). We just launched MARS, a general-purpose robot with an open onboard agentic OS built on top of ROS2.Overview: https://youtu.be/GEOMYDXv6pEControl demo: https://youtu.be/_Cw5fGa8i3sVideos of autonomous use-cases: https://docs.innate.bot/welcome/mars-example-use-casesQuickstart: https://docs.innate.bot/welcome/mars-quick-start.Our last thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42451707When we started we felt there is currently no good affordable general-purpose that anyone can build on. There’s no lack of demand: hugging face’s SO-100 and LeKiwi are pretty clear successes already; but the hardware is unreliable, the software experience is barebone and keeps changing, and you often need to buy hidden extras to make them work (starting with a computer with a good gpu). The Turtlebots were good, but are getting outdated.The open-source hobbyist movement lacks really good platforms to build on, and we wanted something robust and accessible. MARS is our attempt at making a first intuitive AI robot for everyone.What it is:- It comes assembled and calibrated- Has onboard compute with a jetson orin nano 8gb- a 5DoF arm with a wrist camera- Sensors: RGBD wide-angle cam, 2D LiDAR, speakers- Control via a dedicated app and a leader arm that plugs in iPhone and Android- 2 additional USB ports + GPIO pins for extra sensors or effectors.- And our novel SDK called BASIC that allows to run it like an AI agent with VLAs.It boots in a minute, can be controlled via phone, programmable in depth with a PC, and the onboard agent lets it see, talk, plan, and act in real-time.Our SDK BASIC allows to create “behaviors” (our name for programs) ranging from a simple hello world to a very complex long-horizon task involving reasoning, planning, navigation and manipulation. You can create skills that behaviors can run autonomously by training the arm or writing code tools, like for an AI agent.You can also call the ROS2 topics to control the robot at a low-level. And anything created on top of this SDK can be easily shared with anyone else by just sharing the files.This is intended for hobbyist builders and education, and we would love to have your feedback!p.s. If you want to try it, there’s a temporary code HACKERNEWS-INNATE-MARS that lowers the price to $1,799.p.p.s The hardware and software will be open-sourced too, if some of you want to contribute or help us prepare it properly feel free to join our discord at https://discord.gg/YvqQbGKH; tools: custom-built or unnamed agent. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: Prerequisites include a stable internet connection for chaining tasks via the BASIC cloud service, though basic manipulation runs onboard. The robot requires initial calibration and may need external GPUs for training VLAs, although Innate provides free training infrastructure. Source reliability is based on a launch announcement; actual long-term stability and cost-effectiveness compared to alternatives like Unitree are debated in comments. Human approval is needed for any physical deployment in shared spaces..
Tools
custom-built or unnamed agent
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
Hey, we’re Axel and Vignesh, cofounders of Innate (https://www.innate.bot/).
Workflow
Hey, we’re Axel and Vignesh, cofounders of Innate (https://www.innate.bot/). We just launched MARS, a general-purpose robot with an open onboard agentic OS built on top of ROS2.Overview: https://youtu.be/GEOMYDXv6pEControl demo: https://youtu.be/_Cw5fGa8i3sVideos of autonomous use-cases: https://docs.innate.bot/welcome/mars-example-use-casesQuickstart: https://docs.innate.bot/welcome/mars-quick-start.Our last thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42451707When we started we felt there is currently no good affordable general-purpose that anyone can build on. There’s no lack of demand: hugging face’s SO-100 and LeKiwi are pretty clear successes already; but the hardware is unreliable, the software experience is barebone and keeps changing, and you often need to buy hidden extras to make them work (starting with a computer with a good gpu). The Turtlebots were good, but are getting outdated.The open-source hobbyist movement lacks really good platforms to build on, and we wanted something robust and accessible. MARS is our attempt at making a first intuitive AI robot for everyone.What it is:- It comes assembled and calibrated- Has onboard compute with a jetson orin nano 8gb- a 5DoF arm with a wrist camera- Sensors: RGBD wide-angle cam, 2D LiDAR, speakers- Control via a dedicated app and a leader arm that plugs in iPhone and Android- 2 additional USB ports + GPIO pins for extra sensors or effectors.- And our novel SDK called BASIC that allows to run it like an AI agent with VLAs.It boots in a minute, can be controlled via phone, programmable in depth with a PC, and the onboard agent lets it see, talk, plan, and act in real-time.Our SDK BASIC allows to create “behaviors” (our name for programs) ranging from a simple hello world to a very complex long-horizon task involving reasoning, planning, navigation and manipulation. You can create skills that behaviors can run autonomously by training the arm or writing code tools, like for an AI agent.You can also call the ROS2 topics to control the robot at a low-level. And anything created on top of this SDK can be easily shared with anyone else by just sharing the files.This is intended for hobbyist builders and education, and we would love to have your feedback!p.s. If you want to try it, there’s a temporary code HACKERNEWS-INNATE-MARS that lowers the price to $1,799.p.p.s The hardware and software will be open-sourced too, if some of you want to contribute or help us prepare it properly feel free to join our discord at https://discord.gg/YvqQbGKH
Reported result
The source does not report measured business outcomes or performance metrics for MARS. It mentions a temporary discount code lowering the price to $1,799 and notes that hardware and software will be open-sourced. A proposed acceptance check would be verifying that a user can successfully execute a multi-step behavior (e.g., navigate to a room and manipulate an object) using the BASIC SDK without external compute for inference.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
Prerequisites include a stable internet connection for chaining tasks via the BASIC cloud service, though basic manipulation runs onboard. The robot requires initial calibration and may need external GPUs for training VLAs, although Innate provides free training infrastructure. Source reliability is based on a launch announcement; actual long-term stability and cost-effectiveness compared to alternatives like Unitree are debated in comments. Human approval is needed for any physical deployment in shared spaces.
Try it
Act as a robotics developer evaluating the Innate MARS platform. I have access to the MARS robot documentation at https://docs.innate.bot/welcome/mars-quick-start and the BASIC SDK. My goal is to design a 'housekeeper' behavior that navigates to a specific room, identifies an object using the RGBD camera, and performs a pick-and-place action. Steps: 1. Review the BASIC SDK documentation to understand how to define 'behaviors' and 'skills'. 2. Draft a Python script using the BASIC SDK that chains a navigation skill (using 2D LiDAR) with a manipulation skill (using the 5DoF arm). 3. Identify the required inputs for the behavior, such as target coordinates and object class. 4. Simulate the logic flow to ensure it handles potential errors like navigation failure or object not found. 5. Prepare a dry-run plan that requires human confirmation before executing on the physical robot. Output: A detailed technical specification for the 'housekeeper' behavior, including code structure, required sensor inputs, and a risk assessment for autonomous execution. Do not execute any physical commands; provide only the design and simulation logic. If critical API details are missing from the docs, list them as clarifying questions.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.