Robotics, built in the open. By anyone.
OpenRobo is a community for people who want to build robots in the open — sharing source code, toolkits, hardware designs, and the use cases that make them worth building. No gatekeeping, no paywalls, no application to fill in.
Educators to enthusiasts. Whatever you're curious about counts.
Four things, all of them open
A robot is never just one discipline. The community pools all four pieces so nobody has to start from nothing.
Source code
Firmware, perception, planning, control, simulation glue — read it, run it, fork it, break it. Open licences, plain documentation, and no obligation to give anything back.
Toolkits
The scaffolding that saves weeks: simulators, calibration helpers, dataset tools, teleop rigs, and the GenAI tooling people are wiring into their stacks.
Hardware
Schematics, CAD, bills of materials, and honest notes on what actually shipped versus what was supposed to. Built from parts you can genuinely buy.
Use cases
The part usually left out — what the robot was for, what it cost, where it failed, and whether it was worth it. Write-ups from classrooms, labs, farms, and workshops.
Open means open
Plenty of robotics is "open" until you hit the part that matters. This community is built on a smaller, stricter promise, and these are the rules it runs by.
- No credentials required — a curious teenager and a tenured professor get the same welcome
- No paywalled tier, no "contact sales" wall in front of the useful parts
- Failures shared as readily as successes — the dead ends are half the value
- Credit stays with whoever did the work
- Teaching material counts as a contribution, not a side project
For educators
Course-ready builds, lab exercises, and hardware lists that survive a real classroom budget — reusable and remixable without asking permission.
For builders & researchers
Reference designs and code you can read end to end, so you can extend the interesting part instead of rebuilding the boring one.
For enthusiasts
A first robot that doesn't need a lab, a licence, or a purchase order. Start with whatever question got you curious.