Amanda Watson

My startup is on Joe Rogan? LFG!

🚨BREAKING Unitree's IPO application on the Science and Technology Innovation Board has been formally accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with a planned fundraising of 4.202 billion yuan. Of this, the intelligent robot model R&D project accounts for the majority, amounting to 2 billion yuan. In other words: For Unitree, hardware is no longer the problem,the real bottleneck that urgently needs to be overcome is the development of intelligent robot models. Notably, Unitree reports that it has sold over 5,500 humanoid robots,ranking first globally,making them the growth engine of its robotics business.

Whole body motion tracking open source code: github.com/Axellwppr/moti…

Finally, a real use case for JavaScript

you're telling me *this* is the company that built claude code?!

Announcing the new REK Blog! Our first post is from our Co-Founder and CTO Amanda Watson! She discusses the technical limitations of modern robotics and what's enabling the current surge in humanoid robotics. rek.com/blog/everyone-…

Our HUSKY code is now open-source ! Humanoid skateboarding powered by mjlab 🛹 Check it out: github.com/TeleHuman/huma…

I feel like I’m going to hear this line a lot in announcements over the next 12+ months.

Actually, Paranormal Activity 2 has *very* explicit ghost entrances and exits, so what am I even talking about?

[arguably spoilers about stage presentation:] It’s hard to make a proscenium play scary. There are a LOT more modern horror movies than there are modern horror plays. And the Paranormal Activity franchise in particular is heavily tied to the perspective and timing of a camera. In the stage play, the audience can see the entire set at once. There’s also no fast-forwarding, no “time lapses” like in the film franchise. Control over the audience’s perspective is a lot looser than in movie horror or haunted houses, where a ghost or a monster can just appear from the edge of your periphery from some undefined offscreen location in the direction the characters weren’t looking in. They needed to find ways to get their “ghosts” on and offstage, and the ways they do so are very effective.

Folks at GDC this week: random suggestion, but Paranormal Activity (the stage play) is running at ACT in SF and it’s LIT! The story is whatever, but the staging and illusions are novel and noteworthy.

New feature coming to mjlab: "step" events that fire every simulation tick. First use case for this event is implementing random force impulses applied to bodies with configurable duration + cooldown. It works alongside mouse perturbations in the native viewer 🥊

@VorobiovEugene I know exactly what you’re talking about, haha.

@fewerwrong My favourite is when the robot gets flinged into oblivion because I accidentally moved my mouse too fast while having it selected

No one: My sim after I leave my desk for two minutes:

The REK Robots are excited to announce that our Founder Cix Liv will be a speaker at TED 2026 this April in Vancouver, Canada! We hope TED is ready to REK!

SVVR #100 is happening next Thursday during GDC! Come to The VR Industry Party hosted by SVVR and sponsored by REK! SVVR members can check their emails for a discount code! luma.com/gh2ix9pf

@soul_surfer78 Always hiring interns, though our bar for them is high. feel free to DM me a resume if you’re up for it!

@fewerwrong Are you hiring interns for the summer ?

My startup is on Joe Rogan? LFG!

We want to thank the legendary Jamie Hyneman of MythBusters (and Robot Wars!) fame for visiting us at REK HQ! He's been one of our heroes since we were all kids and it was an honor to meet him in person. The REK Robots appreciate him imparting so much wisdom upon us!

“Project Swan is PICO's flagship device for general spatial computing, designed to support a new generation of full-space and shared-space experiences.” schedule.gdconf.com/session/bring-…

@carlosdponx Hey Carlos, you did great work as our Head of Robotic AI. Thanks for your hard work getting our next generation of fight policies up and running! Wishing you the best on your next venture!

small update: I moved on from my role at REK to pursue some new opportunities I got to work on some pretty cool stuff there, and it’s hands down the best team working on humanoid robot fighting in the world! If you’re not already following them, you should, there’s some BIG stuff coming this year to the sport

Alexis Ohanian just led our pre-seed to eliminate luxury counterfeiting. Introducing Veritas, the trusted way to verify luxury. $1.75M pre-seed led by 776 and joined by angels and operators from a16z, DoorDash, Vogue, The Disney Family, Chapter One, TechCrunch, & more.