Degrees of Freedom: Bring Your Own Robot
- WHO IT IS FOR: Independent robotics engineers, AI researchers, and hobbyists building embodied AI without access to a formal lab.
- WHAT IT IS ABOUT: A collaborative working session focused on solving the multidisciplinary challenges of physical AI and robotics hardware.
- FORMAT: A structured monthly working night featuring a kickoff, dedicated deep-work bench time, and project demos.
Stop building in isolation. Whether you've assembled a robotic arm at your kitchen table or trained a policy on a gaming rig, the hardest part of robotics is often the lack of labmates. Degrees of Freedom provides a dedicated space in San Francisco for those building embodied AI to come together, share resources, and push their projects forward.
This monthly working night at Mission Robotics is open to anyone working with actuators, world models, sim pipelines, or teleop rigs. It is the ideal environment to bring the gripper that is only partially assembled or the simulation that refuses to transfer to the real world. For a few hours, the experts at the next bench become your collaborators.
The evening is designed for maximum productivity and rapid debugging. The session begins with a kickoff to set goals, followed by two hours of protected bench time for focused work. The night concludes with demos, where builders can showcase their progress or present a blocking bug to a room of multidisciplinary experts who have likely encountered the same problem.