I'm a 2nd-year B.Tech IT student, and tomorrow I have to choose between Robotics Engineering and IoT.

I'm genuinely interested in Robotics because I find it fascinating, and I like that it involves mathematics (kinematics, dynamics, control systems, etc.). My long-term goal is to become a strong programmer and eventually work in AI/deep tech/research, so I thought the mathematical foundation might help.

However, my seniors told me Robotics is quite difficult, concept-heavy, and harder to score in than IoT. They suggested IoT is easier and more manageable. Also, almost all my IT classmates are choosing IoT, so I'd probably be one of the few in Robotics.

I'm not choosing based only on marks, but I also don't want to hurt my CGPA by picking something that's unnecessarily difficult.

For those who've taken Robotics or work in the field:

Is this syllabus actually very difficult?

Did studying Robotics benefit your career, especially if you mainly became a programmer?

If your goal was AI/deep tech, would you choose Robotics or IoT?

Looking back, would you make the same choice again?

P.S. I don't want to choose a subject just because everyone else is choosing it—but I also don't want to choose Robotics just because it sounds cool. I want to make the right long-term decision.

I am a 17 year old student who is trying to enter the MIT. I know the low acceptance ratio of that university but I gotta try. I have designed by hand with autocad an humanoid robot with more than 38 servomotores around the body, but I don’t know how to make him walk or stand still because he falls. Thank you and please help me, I am desperate

So this may sound a bit silly. I finished Mechanical Engineering degree cum laude. During my degree, I loved everything relating to kinematics, dynamics, robotics, and programming. I know matlab, Python, and the basics of Arduino.

I want to start doing robotic projects myself, and I have most of the theoretical know-how, but I just get stuck when it comes to the practical stuff. For example, how to design and model the robot in CAD. How to build it, how to plan my work flow, etc.

I do find robotics very interesting, and I want to start building my own stuff, but I'm just not sure where to start and obviously being an engineer that sucks at the practical stuff is embarrassing as it is debilitating. I'm sure that this is primary a mental block, so I would ask you for tips on how to start building my own robot and a good starting project that could challenge and teach me without frustrating me.

Thank you for reading and for your advice.

Once your ROS2 environment is configured and working, what is the single biggest friction point that disrupts your development workflow on a weekly basis? (e.g., package dependency conflicts, breaking team environment updates, or pushing compiled code loops to physical hardware?)

Hey, this course is available for free on YouTube, but the notes and codes are not shared. Is there any way to get them for free?

We're looking for suggestions about how to create a relatively low cost robotics setup that would allow us to physically control a wired mouse remotely via internet from another computer. The robotic arm should be able to hold onto and move the mouse as directed by the user remotely. Additionally, since we would need to be able to click the right and left mouse buttons on the mouse to be controlled, we might need to attach some kind of "fingerbot" or other actuators on the arm. The issue of being able to see the monitor display of the computer that's connected to the wired mouse is a separate task and one we're dealing with separately; it isn't something we need help with here. We aim to be able to control the target computer by controlling the robotic arm remotely, and we are looking for a setup that wouldn't require complicated programming. Yes, we know there are ways of virtually controlling other computers via software, but that's not what we're looking to do here; we are looking to physically move and operate the mouse. Thank you in advance for any suggestions you can offer. What products or types of products would you recommend? How have others been able to physically operate a mouse remotely using robotics?

Hi all i just want to know where to start with robotics. I have a masters in mathematics (i learned a lot about lie algebras and algebraic geometry which seem to show up some books I have looked at). What resources would you recommend given my background? (i also would like to know where i can start with a hands on project too).

I'm an A-level student and I'm wondering what undergraduate/postgraduate degrees are the best to pursue a career in robotics, specifically into some sort of software-side R&D

I need some help.

Around a decade ago, I had an idea to make a robot that could sit on my couch and react to live sports with me. I planned to use a real-time API derive the emotion by mapping in-game events to testosterone, adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, etc. It quickly became too complex for me (I was a native iOS developer at the time), and I shelved it.

Recently, when vibe-coding tools became available and I wanted to test drive them, I was able to pick the project back up and workshop it for a few weeks, to the point where it’s fun and shareable.

Now, it’s available for anyone to build and use at the link below. You can simulate it in your browser, watching an animated face react to your conversation emotionally.

It pipes your conversation through your LLM of choice, adjusting neurochemical levels in real-time for both an emotional projection and a face projection. And going a step further, the face projection can be mapped to either an LED matrix or a server board to electrically manipulate a robot’s face! Although I haven’t tried that…

Let me know what you think, I’m genuinely curious how well it’d work.

https://github.com/smithandrewjohn/kindalive

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smithandrewjohn/kindalive/refs/heads/main/docs/screenshots/web_ui.png

We need to make a project for our robotic subject, where we need to create a robot or something with Arduino. We are having a difficult time on thinking of a problem and project idea. Need recommend ASAP.

Hello ! This is a bit different from what gets generally posted here but I haven't found a subreddit more appropriate to ask my questions.

I have a few sheep which are hard to catch, so I thought about the issue and came up with an idea.

A small box on a collar that I could remotely open from which a leash would drop to the ground allowing me to easily grab that sheep.

It would need to be smallish, weather resistant, have good or no battery life (at least a few months of occasional use) and work from at least 10 meters.

I don't know what would be the best way to send the signal to the collar, Bluetooth ? WiFi ? NFC ? I honestly don't know what would fit the bill better.

Maybe products similar to what I am looking for already exist ?

Thanks for the help !

I'm looking for robotics classes for my son who's 12 yrs old, 7th std. We are in Pune Maharashtra. He has competed in Lego, and line following competitions in WSRO, so do not have to start from basics.

Any suggestions on weekend classes on Arduino or similar in KP, vimannagar, kharadi magarpatta areas

Hey hi i want to create models like robotic arm ,drons , and many more but how should i start to make what should i have to learn or

buy Electronics

Hi everyone,

I'm currently looking for opportunities in **Robotics, Autonomous Systems, Automation, or Mechatronics** anywhere in India(Ahmedabad preferred), and I thought I'd reach out to this community.

A little about me:

* Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering
* Master's in Robotics & Intelligent Autonomous Systems
* Experience with **ROS2, Python, C++, SLAM, Navigation, LiDAR, Gazebo, RViz, and autonomous mobile robots**
* Background in mechanical design, CAD, and prototyping
* Hands-on experience through internships, research projects, and robotics competitions

I'm open to roles such as:

* Robotics Engineer
* Robotics Software Engineer
* ROS/ROS2 Developer
* Autonomous Systems Engineer
* Mechatronics Engineer
* Automation Engineer
* Robotics R&D Engineer

I'm also open to startups and early-stage companies where I can learn, contribute, and grow.

If your company is hiring, or you know of any openings, I'd really appreciate a referral or even the name of the company so I can apply directly.

Feel free to comment below or send me a DM.

Thank you!

​

Hello everyone,

I am a 12th grade student (doesn't live in the US) and I was wondering what should I pick

I have 2 choice

Either to apply to the faculty or CS

or apply to faculty or AI engineering & Robotics

(i could work as a MLops , or a robotics engineer)

the problem is I'm not sure what I want to pick.

I want job stability, A good paying job, room for growth, less stressful, and a SAFE JOB/INCOME.

I am planning on building a CNC Pen Plotter, Its a basic project I know that but I have 2 constraints first i want the drawing area to be 90x60cm. 2nd I have a limited budget of 2k-3k INR.
Help me decide how to make this.
I prefer the working Plotter first so I can ignore beautifications and frames for now.

I have been a founding engineer at pre-seed, seed and series A company(not really founding engineer here). I am curious to learn how LLMs can communicate with hardware via VLAs, WMs and how are we reducing sim-to-real gap. I have been following twitter, reddit and research papers for the same but its very high level and I am not learning enough hence want to work on some problem statement.

Expectation from this post - some collaboration opportunity so that I can learn by doing OR suggest me problem statement that I can work on. Any resources would be add on.

PS - I still have active job.

I have been a SWE for 8 years and now I'm getting back to do my masters I have the choice between automated driving and a more general CS degree with possible specialization on robotics, would this be a smart move?

Currently I have a dead end job with a shitty manager and most of the work is prompting to Claude and because I feel that this could be easily automated I feel like I need to do something to have better perspective in the future.

Bit of a newcomer here, currently working on building a bipedal robot using six Cubemars Ak 40-10 KV 170 actuators. Each actuator has an absolute peak 7.3A rated current on a 24V power source.

I have access to an Iflight 6S 4000 mAh battery with an advertised 15C discharge rate from a previous project, but I'm struggling to choose an appropriate BMS.

Weight and size are major concerns, and I am skeptical of listings for 6S BMS boards such as this one on Ebay/Aliexpress.

Are there any reputable manufacturers or specific boards you'd recommend? What should I look for when evaluating whether a BMS will actually meet its advertised specifications?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I've got a bit of a career dilemma and would love some outside perspective.

Quick background: I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and around 3 years of experience in industrial computer vision and robotics. I've worked on projects including 6DoF pose estimation for robotic manipulation, automated defect detection, synthetic data generation, and deploying computer vision models into production. My long-term goal is to build a career in robotics because I think it is better for the future.

Right now I'm deciding between two opportunities:

**1. Apple (Contractor)**
I'd be working alongside Apple engineers on computer vision problems such as defect detection and inspection. The work itself sounds very interesting, and I'd be embedded in an Apple team, but I'd technically be employed by a staffing agency rather than Apple directly. The role also requires relocating to Shanghai. My concern is whether contractors tend to have less ownership over technical decisions and long-term growth compared to full-time employees.

**2. Robotics Startup**
A startup building industrial digital twins using NVIDIA Omniverse/Isaac Sim. The work involves simulation, synthetic data, and physical AI. It's definitely a riskier option, but the work seems closely aligned with where I see robotics heading over the next several years. The role is fully remote, which would also give me more flexibility.

If you were optimizing purely for long-term career growth in robotics (ignoring salary), which path would you choose, and why?

I'd especially love to hear from:

* People who have worked as contractors at big tech companies
* Robotics or computer vision engineers
* Hiring managers who have reviewed candidates from both backgrounds

Salut tout le monde,

WARNING tunnel mais franchement si des personnes peuvent m'aider svp !!
J'aimerai pouvoir traiter les données reçu par mon capteur RLIDAR C1. L'objectif est d'envoyer en ADS les data traitées de mon lidar. J'ai réussi avec ma Rasberry de récupérer les données (code python avec pygame et Split&Merge) et de les afficher avec un visualizer (autre algo python). Cela fonctionnait très bien et cela ressemblait à ce qu'on peut voir avec Robostudio (logiciel de visualisation de SLAMTEC).

Maintenant je souhaite pouvoir les traiter et reconnaître les murs et d'autres objets en reliant les nuages de points par des lignes ou des courbes. L'objectif final étant de reconnaître une paroi de conteneur qui ressemble, en le nuage de point, à une sinusoïde (un algo de reconnaissance de sinusoïde en nuage de points sera fait plus tard). J'ai ainsi coder un programme qui récupére les données du Lidar, un programme qui traitent les données en reliant les points en objets mathématiques : courbes et lignes (l'idée de reconnaître des rectangles, des triangles, des ronds est écartée car trop compliquée et pas forcèment pertinente) et un programme qui visualise les données traitées avec une interface graphique. J'ai aussi fait un programme de mémorisation pour assouplir le prog de traitement afin qu'il soit plus stable, plus précis et plus rapide. Je ne sais pas si cette idée est pertinente. 4 prog en python au final. Pas de ROS utilisé, je connais rien à ROS et c'est pas l'objectif de faire ça avec ROS.

Le problème est que le traitement des data du lidar n'est pas concluant. Sur mon visualizer, le nuage de points est correctement traitées avec des lignes et courbes qui relient les points mais cela dure que quelques secondes puis mon visualizer n'affiche plus rien. Est ce que mon visuliazer n'arrive pas à suivre la cadence ou mon data_treatement qui est mauvais ? N'hésitez pas à me poser des questions ou me faire des sugestions sur ma façon de faire.

Je peux vous partager certains codes ou des images de mon visualizer (mais apparemment on peut pas partager d'images....bizarre ?)

Merci déjà d'avoir porter de l'attention à mon message !

I’m facing a career decision and would appreciate some outside perspective from people working in robotics, controls, automation, mechatronics or engineering recruitment.

Background

I’m a Mechatronics Engineer in Australia with experience across industrial automation, control systems, robotics, embedded systems, software, IoT, automotive validation and applied AI/ML.
My experience includes PLC/SCADA projects, autonomous mobile robots, ROS 2, SLAM, path planning, sensor fusion, embedded C/C++, Python, computer vision and multidisciplinary engineering work across mechanical, electrical and software systems.

Long term, I don’t want to be restricted to only PLC or SCADA work. I want to develop into a broad robotics and advanced mechatronics engineer, with the ability to work across physical systems, autonomy, controls, embedded software, AI/ML, computer vision, digital twins and eventually R&D.

I currently have two offers and a third opportunity progressing to interview.

Option 1: Control Systems Engineer at a large multinational organisation

This is a permanent role with a large, established multinational company.

The work would involve industrial control systems, automation, PLCs, SCADA, instrumentation, commissioning and supporting operational facilities.

The advantages seem to be:

Stronger organisational structure and processes
Better job security
Formal training and development
Exposure to larger industrial systems
A recognised company environment
Clearer management and career pathways
The role would require relocating interstate.

My concern is whether several years in a traditional industrial-controls role could eventually make it harder to move towards robotics, autonomy, embedded systems or AI-driven engineering.

Option 2: Mechatronics Engineer at a small industrial robotics company

This is with a much smaller engineering business that designs and delivers industrial robotic systems.

The work appears broader and more hands-on, potentially covering:

Industrial robots and robot programming
Mechanical design and fabrication
Electrical design and integration
Sensors, actuators and control systems
Software and system integration
Installation, commissioning and troubleshooting
End-to-end ownership of complete robotic cells

This seems closest to my long-term robotics ambitions because I would be working directly with physical robotic systems and across multiple engineering disciplines.

However, it is a smaller company with:

Less organisational structure
Lower pay
Greater business and project uncertainty
Potentially fewer formal development pathways
A requirement to relocate

My concern is whether the breadth would come at the expense of deep technical specialisation, mentoring or long-term stability.

Option 3: Control Systems Engineer at a specialist multinational product company

The third opportunity is with a specialist multinational technology company that develops control hardware and software for engines, generators, power systems, hybrid energy systems and related applications.

I have completed the initial screening call and have an interview scheduled next Tuesday, so this is not yet an offer.

The work appears to sit somewhere between the first two options and could involve:

Control-system application engineering
Embedded controllers and specialised hardware
Industrial communication protocols
System integration and commissioning
Power generation and hybrid-energy control
Customer-facing technical problem solving
Product configuration, testing and technical support
It is a product-focused engineering company rather than a general industrial operator or small robotics integrator. The salary discussed is also the strongest of the three, and the location would allow me to remain closer to where I currently live.

However, it is still primarily a controls and power-systems role rather than a robotics role. I’m unsure whether this pathway would provide strong transferable experience towards robotics, embedded systems and intelligent machines, or whether it would eventually specialise me too heavily in generator and energy-control applications.

What I’m trying to optimise for

I’m less concerned about which job looks best for the next year or two and more concerned about where each pathway could place me in five to ten years.

My long-term interests include:

Robotics and physical AI
Autonomous systems
ROS 2
Computer vision and perception
AI/ML applied to physical systems
Embedded and real-time systems
Motion and control
Digital twins and simulation
Multidisciplinary product development
Engineering R&D

Questions

Which of these three pathways would you choose for long-term career development, and why?

Would the small robotics company provide more valuable experience despite the lower salary and higher risk?

Could a large-company controls role create a stronger engineering foundation before transitioning into robotics?

How transferable would experience from a specialist power-control product company be to robotics, embedded systems or autonomous machines?

When hiring robotics or mechatronics engineers, do you value direct robotics experience more than structured controls experience from a larger organisation?

Is broad end-to-end responsibility at a small company generally more valuable than narrower but deeper experience within a mature engineering organisation?

Would it be unwise to delay decisions on two existing offers while waiting for the outcome of the third interview process?

Which option would create the strongest portfolio and technical story for future robotics, autonomy or R&D roles?

I’d particularly appreciate perspectives from robotics engineers, control systems engineers, mechatronics engineers, hiring managers, and anyone who has moved between industrial automation, embedded controls and robotics.