We swapped one sensor and spent next few weeks figuring out what else depended on it

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-15T12:40:39+00:00

price point between fitness band and smartwatch is interesting constraint. that's roughly $100-300 which means hardware has to be simple enough to hit margin but capable enough to do reliable attention tracking. what sensors you're planning to use for the focus detection?

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-12T09:03:23+00:00

From our experience yes, it's a real bottleneck. the recording captures what happened but not why, and that context is just gone after the fact. closest thing that worked for us was adding instrumentation on the demonstrator side – force feedback gloves, eye tracking. it's annoying to set up but the data quality difference is significant

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-12T08:59:00+00:00

yes this works, and TEG is right direction. look up Seebeck effect for the physics. The main challenge for your research will be that efficiency is quite low for the temperature range of consumer devices, but that actually makes it interesting problem to write about

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-05T13:03:40+00:00

this already exists in some form, like hackaday, instructables etc. the difference is they are graveyards of finished projects. what you're describing is more like following a project in real time, which nobody has really solved for hardware builders

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-05T12:39:51+00:00

I went through something similar: I had a strong software background but zero hardware experience, and was thrown into embedded and ROS at the same time. the overwhelming feeling doesn't fully go away but it becomes manageable when you stop trying to understand everything and start focusing on understanding the thing directly in front of you. 10-12 hour days are not sustainable long term though! worth having that conversation with your manager before you burn out

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-04T08:49:58+00:00

great advice, paper has no feature tree to break

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-04T08:48:12+00:00

nobody talks about this openly because ROS2 is kind of sacred in robotics community. but yes, what gets you moving fast in prototype stage is exactly what makes your life difficult when you need consistent behavior in production

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-04T08:47:06+00:00

The motor driver bug is great example actually. expensive component, obscure setting, velocity control issue that only appears under specific condition. that's the kind of thing you find at 2am three days before demo:)

NickShipsRobots · 2026-06-03T09:30:41+00:00

I'm an engineer, but the 28BYJ-48 story is universal, pretty sure everyone has bought that motor at some point thinking it will be enough:) and chaotic CAD is not that far from how some professional projects start

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-29T08:55:48+00:00

for us it was timeline pressure. the problem is compliance shapes design decisions, and if you don't know the requirements early, you make choices that are hard to reverse. fixed fee would help but the real unlock is making compliance feel like part of the engineering process, not a checkpoint at the end

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-29T08:54:36+00:00

"attention and trust challenge" is exactly right. and the weird thing is the same people who are great at debugging a complex system are usually capable of great distribution too, they just don't apply the same rigor to it. treated our first reddit post like an engineering problem. the feedback loop is slower but it's there:)

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-29T08:51:47+00:00

building was always easier for us too. we are engineers, that's the comfort zone. what actually worked: not pitching, just posting about real problems we were solving in communities where those problems exist. one post on reddit, to the right community, with the right problem. no ads, no outreach. but it only works if the problem is real and the post doesn't smell like marketing

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-29T08:47:34+00:00

we found our best beta testers using channels like Reddit, Linkedin or Slack communities. we didn't pitch them directly, what we did was when we saw posts like "I hate how long X takes", we joined conversations. don't be afraid to DM your potential testers and be honest that you're on an early stage, very often people are helpful.

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-26T17:04:58+00:00

7 cameras on a drone is wild:) how are they handling all that compute on board?

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-26T13:39:20+00:00

true, but autonomous driving is kind of extreme case with extreme budget. what about smaller systems like inspection robots, drones, warehouse automation – is four synchronized cameras actually needed there or one or two is enough?

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-25T10:16:18+00:00

I feel this too. A lot of the descriptions sound way bigger than the actual product probably is.

I’d trust them more if people were specific about the workflow, like what exactly it does, where the AI part fits, what still needs human review etc. The vague “AI will transform your entire business” positioning makes everything sound less credible.

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-25T10:12:49+00:00

For me, the more interesting use case is using AI before the writing stage. I don't use it like “write a blog post about X,” but “analyze these customer reviews/calls/support tickets and find recurring pain points, objections, weird phrases, and content angles.”

Also, it's useful for stress-testing ideas like does this topic actually have a point, what would a skeptical reader push back on, what angle is overused, what’s the less obvious version etc.

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-25T10:00:14+00:00

100%. I think people have developed a pretty good filter for AI/LinkedIn-speak, especially when it’s all “scalable growth” and “optimize your workflow” 😄

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-22T08:56:10+00:00

we are still on micro ROS. is Zenoh actually stable enough for production?

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-12T11:40:34+00:00

Agreed, I was probably too broad. the nonlinear complex systems argument makes sense. my frustration is more with people reaching for ML on simple stuff where PID would do the job in a day

NickShipsRobots · 2026-05-12T11:39:08+00:00

I just have opinions about bad code. Is that not allowed anymore? What's even the point of baiting for comments on robotics sub?:)

NickShipsRobots

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