Vikram Vadrevu

We just did remote teleop over @Starlink from Kigali, Rwanda to SF.

We built Sentinel - a teleoperation application to control any robot using VR. It integrates with your existing stack so you can get up and running in hours, not weeks. Here's how it accelerates robotics teams:

Let Claude control your robot they said

@oprydai What are you working on?

how to build a $B company? the idea is simple. one big vision. everything else is modular. you don’t build a monolith. you build artifacts. each module: • has a clear purpose • outputs something measurable • feeds back into the system • aligns with the larger vision the output is the alignment check. if a module doesn’t produce signal, it doesn’t belong. modules are not ideas. they are tools. they automate repetitive flows. they reduce cognitive load. they free attention for higher-order work. interconnection matters. modules talk to each other. data, artifacts, decisions flow across the system. nothing is isolated. nothing is ornamental. the rule is simple: every part must serve the whole. every tool must justify its existence through output. this is how complex systems stay coherent. this is how vision becomes execution. this is how scale stops breaking you.

life as a roboticist

I bet few people there know it, but YC wouldn't exist without UIUC. My father went there from England on a Fullbright, and came back determined to move to America.

@zoox in sf

@chris_j_paxton The level of force control and fine-grain dexterity demonstrated was really impressive. It was much slower than the video but handled small and fragile objects really well.

This autonomous windmill assembly demo is incredibly impressive, and was shown live!

@decamaret @NimaZeighami Not fully sure how it works but they are using optical sensors instead of capacitive or Hall effect for the tactile pads. Don’t think it’s a full camera though.

@vikramvadrevu @NimaZeighami I read somewhere (here on X) that the fingers have cameras….

Sharpa blew me away with their live dexterous hands demo! Robot components are getting wild!

@oprydai I wish I could use my MacBook for robotics development😔

don't buy a gaming laptop for coding, buy a macbook.

@decamaret @NimaZeighami They are using the tactile sensors on the fingers as well!

@NimaZeighami Thats very impressive!! On the bottom of the wrist is it a camera??

@ErebiusWhite @simonkalouche @Scobleizer They probably use slip rings. They are commonly used in MRI machines.

@simonkalouche @Scobleizer I would like to know how they did the wiring at the joints

Figure robot just pooped its pants.

@ritwikpavan I’ll be there!

Who is going to CES next week?

@HaoruXue Great post! How can TaaS be a venture scalable (and backable) business? Isn't it like pitching a call center as a tech company?

My new blog to wrap up the year: haoruxue.github.io/taas/ Training-time data scaling makes robotics work. Deploy-time data scaling makes robotics business work. My prediction for 2026? A new word to add to robotics startup ideas: teleoperation-as-a-service (TaaS)

We just released results for our newest VLA from Physical Intelligence: π*0.6. This one is trained with RL, and it makes it quite a bit better: often doubles throughput, enables real-world tasks like folding real laundry and making espresso drinks at the office.

How am i supposed to 996 without @tbpn?

Are we just calling every SaaS platform for hardtech infra now?

@aryind_ I second this, I have never been satisfied with any ai/agent product I have ever tried. The whole industry is over-promising and under-delivering.

every agentic ai tool is mid. feels like i spend more time - chasing answers it should know OR - prompting around its limits than actually getting any productivity gains.