Robotics

July 2026: Inmoov Quality Time

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. July was a month of the robots telling me I was wrong.
Six bugs found by watching a robot move, one found by listening to it not move — and every single
one of them had passed a test first.

InMoov — a real ROS2 driver
After months of “nothing to report”, the InMoov finally got the attention it deserved. It now has a
proper ROS2 interface: a ros2_control hardware driver in C++ talking to MyRobotLab over the
network. Drag a slider in RViz and the real robot’s head turns.
The interesting part wasn’t the plumbing; it was the mapping. ROS2 thinks in radians, with a joint at
zero when the robot is at rest. The servos think in degrees, 0–180, with a calibrated rest position —
and on a hand-built robot those rest positions are nothing like symmetrical. On mine the left
shoulder rests at 35° and the right at 62°. So the driver reads every servo’s real minimum, maximum
and rest live from the robot at startup. A static table would have been wrong on day one.
Then I started dragging sliders and found six joints moving the wrong way in a single session. The
head panned backwards. The shoulders moved in opposite directions to each other. The elbows
bent backwards in the simulator while the real arm bent correctly — which is the nasty one, because
the robot looks right and you only catch it by watching the 3D model instead of the machine.
Each fix was one line. Finding them was the work, and the only tool that found them was a person
looking at a robot.

Driving the InMoov from a VR headset
The other half of the month: a Meta Quest app that teleoperates it. Put the headset on, move your
arms, and the robot copies you — head, shoulders, biceps, rotation.
The rest-position problem came back harder, because a human shoulder and an InMoov shoulder
share neither a range nor a zero. I enabled the joints one group at a time, because a wrong sign on a
slider is a puzzle and a wrong sign on a life-size arm is a repair.
Two details worth keeping. The head needed an auto-neutral on engage — whatever pose your
head is in when you connect becomes zero, or you inherit a permanent bias and fight it all session.
And there’s a voice recentre command, because you can’t reach a keyboard wearing a headset with
your arms in the air.
Best bug of the lot: the code reading each servo’s limits treated a limit of 0.0 as “not set”. Zero is a
perfectly ordinary minimum. Every servo whose travel started at zero was silently getting a default
instead of the truth.

Sanbot — a real LiDAR, and a brake I couldn’t switch off
The Sanbot’s ROS2 side got honest this month. A real LDS-006 LiDAR over USB drives /scan ,
replacing the depth-camera hack it had been faking scans with. Closed-loop pose, IMU heading at
source, and stepped turning that SLAM can actually follow. Watching a nine-year-old service robot
build a map of my hallway was the most satisfying thing I did all month.
Then one long, doomed campaign. The Sanbot has a firmware proximity brake that stops it near
obstacles — useful, until ROS2 is doing the navigating and the robot halts a metre short of a
waypoint for reasons the planner knows nothing about. I found the switch that disables obstacle
avoidance. I re-asserted it at every startup. I sent an undocumented MCU command that looked
exactly like the one that would hide the front sensors.
It cannot be disabled. The side sensors, yes. The front brake, no — not from software, at any level I
can reach. So I deleted every lever I’d built for it and wrote down that it’s impossible, which is worth
more than the code was.
(All of this ran through a bridge — a Python node on a Linux box relaying between ROS2 and the
robot. That’s since been replaced, but that’s an August story.)

TurtleBot2 — a proper LiDAR too
The Kobuki got the same treatment. It had been limping along on a depth-camera scan and an
unreliable vendor SDK; it now has a real Okdo LD06 LiDAR publishing /scan through a custom
node I wrote against the raw FTDI serial stream. Depth-scan is demoted to a legacy opt-in. Both
robots pinned to /dev/serial/by-id paths, because device numbering changes the moment you
plug something else in.

Burf Platform — waypoints that actually arrive
The Platform’s goto now drives room-to-room rather than just across open floor. Three fixes made
the difference: denoising the occupancy grid before inflating it, treating deep unknown space
differently from the thin rind around walls, and making the stall detector rotation-aware so a robot
turning on the spot isn’t mistaken for a stuck one.
The inflation padding came down from 0.22 to 0.15 as well. Waypoints near furniture were stopping
about a metre short — the goal was being nudged out to the inflation boundary, then the 0.30
accept radius stacked on top of that. Two reasonable numbers making one unreasonable one.

Plan for 2026 — honest scorecard

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics — steady. Consultancy delivering.
  • Launch Burf Platform as MVP — goto is genuinely usable now. Still no price and no first
    customer, which is the real bottleneck.
  • Continue learning ROS2 — best month yet. A ros2_control driver from scratch, two
    custom LiDAR nodes, and SLAM on a robot nobody expected to run it.
  • InMoov Robots — finally, properly, yes. Driver working, VR teleop working. (Big progress)
  • Continue Brilliant learning — ongoing.
  • Build my own robot product — paused

What’s next
Finish confirming the remaining joint directions on the InMoov, and finally record a video of the
humanoid being teleoperated from a VR headset. That’s worked since the end of July and there’s
still no footage of it — which, given it’s the best-looking thing in the workshop, is its own kind of
bug.

June 2026: The Robot That Could Strafe (and Never Said So)

Posted on by burf2000

Hello again. Last month was about getting the foundations in shape; this month was about wheels turning and maps building. June was a hardware month — the kind where you spend an evening with a multimeter and a servo that’s spinning the wrong way, and then suddenly a robot does the thing.

The wheelchair robot (built from scratch)

This one ran away from me in the best way. The plan was modest — “mount the Pi, do one RC-driven test run.” Instead, I built the whole robot.

It’s an electric wheelchair turned into a tank-drive robot. Arduino running a DBH-12V dual motor driver (with a verified pin map, which took a couple of goes), RC tank-drive on the sticks, and — the part I’m most pleased with — a latching e-stop with a 300 ms watchdog. If the control link drops, it stops. If you hit the e-stop, it stays stopped until you deliberately reset it. When you’re building something that weighs as much as a person and can pull away from you, that’s not a nice-to-have.

All of it runs through one control daemon: e-stop, RC drive, and onboard journey recording (LiDAR, IMU, GPS, camera) in a single process. The recording side reuses the pipeline I built for the G-Wiz telemetry rig last month — record a run, upload it, replay it in the browser on a map ready for some AI processing.

TurtleBot2 / Kobuki — SLAM on a Jetson, driven through the platform

This one was a resurrection. The Kobuki TurtleBot2 had been sitting unused for years — an ancient NVIDIA Jetson TK1 for a brain, Ubuntu 14, ROS1, the whole lot frozen in time. This month I dragged it into the present: a newer Jetson, and ROS2 Humble running in a Docker container — which is the neatest way to get a modern ROS2 onto older Jetson hardware without reflashing the whole board and fighting its ancient OS. From there, it’s wired into the same control stack as everything else, so I can drive it and watch its map from the browser. Xtion depth camera for the laser scan, slam_toolbox for mapping and multi-waypoint navigation. Driving it to a series of waypoints and watching the map fill in is genuinely satisfying.

Reviving it wasn’t free, though — and the camera is where it bit me. Depth-camera SLAM on the Jetson is right at the edge of what the hardware can do. A real LiDAR gives you a clean 360° scan; a depth camera gives you a narrow forward cone faked into a laser scan, and on a Nano, the whole pipeline is fighting for CPU. You lose the map the moment you turn too fast, and loop closure is fragile because the robot can’t see enough of the world at once. I got it mapping and navigating — but I also got a concrete feel for why people put a proper LiDAR on anything they’re serious about, and why a beefier compute brain (the Jetson Orin on my bench is the obvious upgrade) changes the game. That’s the kind of lesson you can’t read in a tutorial. You have to drive the thing into a wall a few times.

PiBob — ROS2 driver, hardware-verified end-to-end

PiBob (my Pi-brained humanoid) crossed the finish line in ROS2 this month. I went from a URDF that frankly didn’t look like the actual robot — arm meshes floating in the wrong places — to every part correctly seated and mirrored per side, and then I drove the real servos from the RViz sliders.

The hardware test more than earned its keep. It caught a driver bug where the bridge had never actually loaded the joints — so it was cheerfully POSTing nothing to the servos — plus three servos wired to turn the wrong way. None of that shows up in simulation. You only find it when a real arm moves and goes, “That’s not right.”

https://github.com/burf2000/PiBob/tree/main/ros2

The Sanbot turned out to be holonomic — and the SDK never said so

The biggest surprise of the month came from a robot I’ve owned for ages: the Sanbot Elf. I’m building a proper ROS2 driver for it — putting a vendor-locked Android humanoid onto the ROS2 graph with standard topics, so normal robotics tooling can drive it like anything else — and while reverse-engineering its OpenSDK I started poking at the wheel commands one at a time.

It has three omni wheels, and it turns out it can strafe sideways and spin on the spot — full holonomic motion — none of which is in any documentation I could find. The SDK just exposes a pile of motion codes with vague names, and the only way to learn what each actually did was to fire it at the real robot and watch. So I did: send code 3, it spins left on the spot; code 10, it slides sideways a metre and a half without rotating. Watching a service humanoid crab across the room when you had no idea it could is a proper “wait, it can do that?” moment.

I wrote the whole thing down — which code does what, plus the gotchas (the “turn” codes are actually orbits, not on-the-spot spins, and read reversed) — so the next person, probably future me, doesn’t have to rediscover it. The driver itself is still in development, but the hard part — knowing what the robot can actually do — is mapped. A robot is often far more capable than its own manual admits.

Honest scorecard

  • Sanbot ROS2 driver + holonomic discovery — ✅ driver built; omni motion (strafe/spin) mapped and documented.
  • Wheelchair robot — ✅ built and hardware-verified, way past plan.
  • TurtleBot2 SLAM + nav — ✅ mapping and navigating, with a clear-eyed view of the depth-cam limits.
  • PiBob ROS2 — ✅ done, real servos driven from RViz.
  • Heterogeneous fleet driver — safety-hardened, getting more solid each month.
  • Meta Quest teleop for PiBob / Inmoov — ❌ built but could be better, not fully tested with the Inmoov
  • Burf Platform improvements — Security fixes and simple SLAM / A* navigation added to Burf Platform

What’s next

First job is getting the wheelchair onto ROS2: sensors properly mounted, a URDF built from the real mounting positions, laser-odometry and slam_toolbox, so a driven journey turns into a live 2-D map in the browser. Drive it around a room, watch the map appear — that’s the satisfying full-circle moment. Then the fun part: run all that recorded trip data through some AI — every run captures LiDAR, IMU, GPS, and camera, and all that data is begging to be learned from rather than just replayed.

Alongside that, two longer threads. Keep building out the platform that ties these very different robots together — more of the control, telemetry, and fleet features that make a pile of one-off robots behave like one system. And keep levelling up my ROS2, which every one of these builds quietly pushes a bit further.

For a part-time evenings-and-weekends operation, June was a good month: four very different robots, all moving, all talking through the same stack. That’s exactly the direction I wanted this to go. More next month.

May 2026: The Platform Takes Shape

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. Two months have passed since my last post, and for once I can say the gap is because I’ve actually been building things rather than just thinking about them.

Burf Platform
Back in March, I admitted I hadn’t properly defined what the Platform was or what problem it solved. Well, that’s changed — and it’s been the main focus of the last two months.

The headline is BRemote — a unified app now covering four robots across two platforms. The Android app supports Sanbot, Afobot, and iPAL from a single codebase, and the iOS app brings the Double 2 into the fold. Getting iPAL working was a pleasant surprise given how locked down it can be — Sanbot control is working really well, Afobot is solid with some minor turning quirks still to iron out, and iPAL has a working camera feed with full control coming next.

Beyond the apps, the Platform API is now properly working — WebRTC video feeds running across all robots with data recording, telemetry, and commands consistently across the fleet. It’s starting to feel like a real product rather than a collection of separate experiments, which is a good feeling.

PiBob
PiBob has been open-sourced — the aim was always to make it as accessible as possible, and this feels like the right move. ROS2 support is on the roadmap, but right now the Platform is the priority.

Viam Rover
The Viam rover is up and running, auto-connecting to the Viam cloud on startup. I’ve already built a Burf Platform driver for it, so it sits alongside the other robots in the dashboard. More time is needed to properly put it through its paces, but the integration is there.

UGV
Back up and running after the Cube Black USB port issue was resolved. Had a brief play but nothing dramatic to report yet — it’s a capable machine that deserves more focused time than I’ve given it.

Hack24
Still parked. One day!

InMoov
Nothing to report this month. The Platform is where the energy is going right now, and that feels like the right call.

Brilliant
Still going daily and at 533 days now. One of those habits that just keeps rolling.

Plan for 2026 — honest scorecard:

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics — progressing
  • Launch Burf Platform as MVP — BRemote unified across four robots and two platforms, API working, data recording underway. (Strong progress)
  • Continue learning ROS2 — PiBob driver on the roadmap. (Progressing)
  • InMoov Robots — Still quiet. (Needs attention)
  • Continue Brilliant learning — Daily streak continues. (Ongoing)
  • Build my own robot product — PiBob open-sourced. (Progressing)

For the first time in a few months, the plan actually feels like it’s moving in the right direction. The Platform has a clear identity, BRemote has a consistent name across both platforms, and the focus is on holding. Let’s see if I can say the same thing next month.

March 2026: The Robot Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. So, as usual, my ability to focus on a single thing has gone Pete Tong. In the last edition, I was set on getting the Platform out there and seeing if it has legs. Instead, I purchased some new toys!

iPAL Humanoid Companion Robot
The first interesting addition to my robot collection is the iPAL robot — slightly taller than a Sanbot, it’s a super cute, child-like robot. It has working arms, though the fingers aren’t powered. It runs Android 7 and they’ve done a solid job with the software — the head tracking is a nice touch and the voice is surprisingly cute. I believe they still sell them, and it even comes with a ROS driver, which I’m looking forward to exploring.

Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV)
This large, monster truck-like robot was an interesting eBay find — clearly someone put serious money into building it. It runs the Herelink system with a CubePilot Cube Black brain, and comes equipped with GPS (Here2), Lidar, and a camera system. From the Android-powered controller you can send it GPS waypoints and off it goes autonomously. It’s a new area of robotics for me and I’m looking forward to spending more time with it.

PiBob Desktop Robot
I also built a desktop robot called PiBob. The aim was to design something fun that was as cheap and simple to build as possible — and it was great fun to make. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi 3 (had one lying around) and a servo shield, using affordable servos that keep the total build cost under £100 excluding the Pi. It’s still early stages, but I’m hoping to expand it into a larger, moving version.


The Platform
Not much progress on the Platform this month — I’ve been trying to find the headspace to properly define the MVP and the problem it actually solves. The current robot support list, outside of the ROS 2 driver, is fairly limited and a little dated. Once I’ve got clarity on the direction, I can move it forward with more purpose.


Tarot FY680 Heavy Lift Autonomous Drone
I bought this drone a few months back, but have never tried to fly it — out of pure fear. If this thing hits you or falls out of the sky, you’re going to get seriously hurt. It’s 1 meter tip to tip and can lift up to 7 kg. I’ve just completed my FlyerId and OperatorId, so I can now legally fly it, and my first flight was a brave 1 meter off the ground.

Burf Robotics
Not much progress this month — I’ve had a couple of chats with other companies, but I still haven’t actively gone out and marketed it. People have been coming to me, which is encouraging, but I need to change that dynamic.

ROS2
I’m continuously using ROS 2 but need dedicated time to expand my knowledge. This month I’ve been more focused on OLO consultancy work, which has come at the expense of learning. I need to prioritise this.

Brilliant
Continuing daily and at 479 days now. Like ROS 2, I need to push myself out of my comfort zone with it — or decide to drop it.

Hack24
Parked until I have time to properly test it.

Meta Quest Tracking
I spent a little time on this to see if it works with PiBob. The results were underwhelming, so it needs more attention before it’s useful.

InMoov Humanoid Robot
Nothing to report this month — and honestly, writing this blog has made it clear just how much I’ve lost focus. That needs to change.

Plan for 2026
The plan isn’t exactly going to plan — a lot of the goals above haven’t moved forward, but I did redirect my time towards some shiny new things instead.

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics and its offerings
    Target: Gain at least one additional customer. (Progressing)
  • Launch Burf Platform as an MVP
    Target: Deliver an MVP with user management, robot management, and support for a range of robot platforms. (Done)
  • Continue learning ROS2
    Target: Deepen my understanding of Nav2, MoveIt, and integrating AI with ROS2. (Needs more progress)
  • Inmoov Robots
    Target: Focus more on interactive demonstrations rather than building additional robots. I’d still like to develop a mobile InMoov platform. (Needs more progress)
  • Continue Brilliant learning
    (Needs more progress)
  • Build my own robot product
    Target: Not fully committed yet, but PiBob is a proof of concept and a step in that direction. (PiBob POC built)

Let’s be honest — I failed at formalising a plan this month. I’m going to sit with this blog post for a while and figure out what actually matters to me.

February 2026: The Platform Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. I have been super busy trying to get the first version of The Platform out to see if the idea has legs. Hopefully by next month I should know if it does.

The Platform
Formerly known as Burf Platform—a name that didn’t make much sense—the Platform is a robotics system designed to make it easy for users to teleoperate their robots. It is launching with ROS 2 support and also supports a range of other robots, including the Sanbot Elf, Double 2, and even the InMoov humanoid robot.

The goal is to contribute something meaningful to the field of robotics. There are plans to expand support to additional robot types, with a particular focus on helping hobbyists, supporting drones, and enabling data collection. A fully functional API is already available.

Burf Robotics
The goal is to continue to build the brand and client base. I have already had some positive talks with other robotics companies this month. I still have the lust to build my own robot, however The Platform is my current focus.

ROS2
I am continuously using ROS 2; however I need some focus time on expanding my knowledge. I have been focused on The Platform, and that needed limited ROS 2 functionality. I need to get back to the Udemy courses that I had started a while back.

I have started work on a PiCar ROS 2 driver (Ackermann-steering), and I have updated my TurtleBot2 to ROS 2, and it is now running a Jetson Nano instead of the Jetson TK1. I also purchased a VIAM robotic rover to try out.

Brilliant
Continuing daily and at 443 days now. Like ROS 2, I need to take myself out of my comfort zone.

Hack24
A blast from the past, Hack24 was one of my favorite game projects that I built over 10 years ago. Well, I decided to chuck the old Objective-C OpenGL code base at Claude and see if it could rewrite it in Swift using SceneKit, and I have to say, it did a good job. The server has been rewritten in Swift Vapor, as I need to focus on learning Swift again. I hope to release it pretty soon as a bit of fun.

Meta Quest Tracking
I have also started working on a Meta Quest 3 app to track body movement. This is to replace the Apple Vision Pro demo I had controlling the Inmoov Humanoid Robot, as I do not have access to the AVP anymore.

InMoov Humanoid Robot
I did have a brief play with one of my InMoov’s recently. The SD card in one of the Raspberry Pi’s had died, so I fixed that and ordered it a sound card and mic. I hope to use this with the tracking app very soon

Plan for 2026
The last month has been super busy, so yet again I find myself running before I have properly thought about the year’s goals. However, let’s see if there is any progress from last month.

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics and its offerings
    Target: Gain at least one additional customer. (Progressing)
  • Launch Burf Platform as an MVP
    Target: Deliver an MVP with user management, robot management, and support for a range of robot platforms. (Done)
  • Continue learning ROS2
    Target: Deepen my understanding of Nav2, MoveIt, and integrating AI with ROS2. (Needs more progress)
  • Inmoov Robots
    Target: Focus more on interactive demonstrations rather than building additional robots. I would still like to develop a mobile InMoov platform. (Progressing)
  • Continue Brilliant learning
  • Build my own robot product
    I am not fully committed to this yet; however, I did begin building my own robotic arm. Developing my own robot could be a valuable learning experience, particularly by designing and implementing the ROS2 drivers around custom hardware. This would focus on a robotic system with arms rather than a mobile platform. (Needs refining)

Hopefully, next month’s edition, I will actually finish formalising a plan.

January 2026: Happy New Year Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update. I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and an epic New Year. The Christmas period rushed through at lightning speed, but was enjoyable. In this edition, I hope to map out what I plan to do in 2026.

Burf Robotics
Burf Robotics is the key focus for 2026 in that I want to make sure it is properly operating as a company now that it has its first customer (OLO Robotics), which moves it from an idea to a reality. I am also working on its first product Burf Platform.

Burf Platform
Over the festive period, I spent much of my spare time working on the platform. The current vision remains a remote teleoperation platform that supports multiple types of robots. So far, I have developed drivers for:

  • Sanbot Elf
  • Afobot
  • ROS2 Mobile robots
  • Double 2 Robot

The ROS2 driver is the one I am most excited about, as it has the potential to open access to a wide range of robots. My aim is to make integrating the driver as simple as possible, mapping the camera feed (via WebRTC), sensors, and teleoperation topics directly into the platform. The next step is to set up hosting for the platform.

ANYCUBIC Photon Mono 4
So on a different note, I got a resin printer for Christmas, which was awesome. I am super impressed with the printing quality; however, it is a lot messier and smellier than normal 3D printing. I hope it will expand what I am able to print for my projects.

ROS2
I have continued my learning on ROS2, and I am really enjoying it. I still have an awful lot to learn. It feels the more I understand, the more I need to learn. However, for my needs, I am making good progress. I need to get back to the Inmoov ROS2 driver (Sim) I updated and then work on a hardware driver for that. I also want to take a look at Foxglove, which allows you to visualise all of your ROS data.

Brilliant
Something I had not mentioned for a while is that I am still doing Brilliant.org daily and am up to over 400 days now. I do need to actually focus on expanding my learning here instead of going for the easy topics.

Reviewing 2025
At the start of 2025, I set 3 high-level goals:

  • MyRobotLab + The Inmoov + LLM
  • ROS2 and the Rover Robot
  • Gwiz and predictive driving

The year didn’t go as planned due to my redundancy, but I ended up doing more robotics than in any previous year. This led to the formation of Burf Robotics, and I successfully met my MyRobotLab and ROS2 goals. The Gwiz was always intended as a fun side project, so I’m not concerned about that. My conservatory has now become a dedicated robotics space, and overall, I feel I’ve gained a significant amount of knowledge over the past year.

Plan for 2026
I haven’t fully stepped back to define the plan in its entirety yet; however, I do have several clear areas of focus for 2026:

  • Strengthen Burf Robotics and its offerings
    Target: Gain at least one additional customer.
  • Launch Burf Platform as an MVP
    Target: Deliver an MVP with user management, robot management, and support for a range of robot platforms.
  • Continue learning ROS2
    Target: Deepen my understanding of Nav2, MoveIt, and integrating AI with ROS2.
  • Inmoov Robots
    Target: Focus more on interactive demonstrations rather than building additional robots. I would still like to develop a mobile InMoov platform.
  • Continue Brilliant learning
  • Build my own robot product
    I am not fully committed to this yet; however, I did begin building my own robotic arm. Developing my own robot could be a valuable learning experience, particularly by designing and implementing the ROS2 drivers around custom hardware. This would focus on a robotic system with arms rather than a mobile platform.

In my next update, I hope to solidify the plan.

December 2025: Christmas Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, I hope everyone is enjoying the run up to Christmas and that special time off with loved ones. Around this time I start to work out what I have achieved this year.

OLO Robotics
Formally BOW, I am chuffed to announce that I am contracting for them 1 day a week (outside my day job) testing their robotics platform. This is through Burf Robotics which means it has it’s first customer. They have lent me a Leo Robot to put their platform through its paces which is a great bit of ROS2 kit. This proves that my learning with ROS2 and setting up Burf Robotics was a good idea and also keeps me doing robotics regularly .


ROS2 Rover
I have also made some improvements to the ROS2 3D Printed Rover I built. I have added an IMU (MPU 6050 instead of MPU9250 due to counterfeit parts) however this introduces me in to sensor fusion as you need to fuse the ODOM with the IMU data. I need to spend more time on this but it should improve the rover and my knowledge of ROS2.

Double Robotics 2
A bit of a random buy one night but I now have an old Double Robotics 2 robot. This is like a tele-presence robot with a an iPad on top. It is actually a nice bit of kit and I hope to add it to my Burf Platform as my first iOS Robot. Most of my other robotics run Android


Burf Platform
So I am working on a idea around having a platform that allows remote control of old / hobbiest robots for people who can’t program there own robots but still want to use them. It’s still early stages but I hope to have a prototype up soon similar to the remote control app for the Sanbot robot. I want to use this as a learning project to learn a new technology, just deciding on what that is.

Claude Code
So about a month ago I moved from Cursor (brief use) to Claude Code and am amazed on how powerful it is. I mean it can do so much more compared to Cursor and ChatGPT. I would say the limits on the it are very tight compared to Cursor, however it is still a game changer.

Reviewing the Plan

So here was the latest plan from September before I lost my job:

  • Create a Sanbot Remote Control App
  • Continue to deepen my ROS2 knowledge
  • Continue Developing the InMoov Humanoids
  • Have Fun with the G-Wiz

So the G-Wiz has been paused for the moment as it needs new batteries, isn’t taxed (No longer free to tax) or insured and so there is too much up front effort to fun ratio right now.

I have not done a great deal with the Inmoov Humanoids because (as I have just remembered) I started building my own simple arm, to later build a whole robot as I wanted something I could own myself. The Inmoov robotics are fantastic however they can not be used for commercial gain. I think I may get back to this, however also need to work on the 3rd Inmoov robot

I have continued to improve my ROS2 knowledge and the work with OLO Robotics can only help this. This also shows Burf Robotics has potential.

The Sanbot Remote app, which will extend to the Afobot robot and then later the Double robotics 2 robot, will become the Burf Platform (Name to change) which I have a lot of ideas for. After the OLO Robotics work, the Burf Platform will be my focus for a bit.

So on reflection, the last month has actually involved a lot more robotics than I expected after losing my job.

August 2025: The ROS2 Edition

Posted on by burf2000


Hello and welcome to another Burf update! Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to publish a July post — it’s been full throttle on the robotics front. This year is really shaping up to be a robotics-heavy one, and I’m loving it.

MTC: Robotics and Automation Event
We attended the event, and the second InMoov robot did well playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. A few lessons were learned — notably, face detection struggled with different skin tones and people wearing glasses. I had (wrongly) assumed that the maturity of OpenCV would have eliminated these kinds of biases by now.

As for the Sanbot robot — it didn’t get used much, so I need to think harder about a compelling use case for it.

Gwiz Update
Back in May, the G-Wiz passed its MOT, but unfortunately, the batteries were shot. Luckily, a kind soul from the G-Wiz forum donated some replacements (seriously nice of them), and now the car is up and running. The plan — once I clear the next few tasks — is to start recording data and begin training an AI to drive it.

ROS2, the Rover Robot and the Robotic Arms
This month has been packed with ROS2 learning. I’ve completed the ROS2 Manipulator course on Udemy (and I’m nearly done with the self-driving course). I’ve successfully controlled three different robotic arms using MoveIt, Gazebo, and RViz.

Massive thanks to Compsoft for giving me time to dive deep into ROS2 — they had a cool idea involving it, which gave me the perfect excuse to learn. I still have plenty to master, but I’m feeling far more confident than I did a few months ago.

AI
ChatGPT has been incredibly helpful throughout the ROS2 journey. Sure, it’s made its share of mistakes — looping, incorrect suggestions, etc. — but it’s been a great learning tool. The bigger vision is to use AI to simplify robotic arm control, lowering the barrier to entry for others.

Burf.co
The main website has been updated to reflect my focus on robotics. The new goal is to offer consultancy and robot rentals — an exciting next step in the Burf journey!

Inmoov humanoid 3
Yes, somehow I’ve ended up with a third InMoov robot — rescued just before it was scrapped. It still needs a lot of work, but I’ve managed to piece it back together and source enough parts to upgrade the others. This one now has LCD eyes, which adds a fun new dimension.

The Plan
At the start of this year, I set myself three high-level goals:

  • MyRobotLab + The Inmoov + LLM
    (Rock paper Scissors demo)
  • ROS2 and the Rover Robot
    (ROS2-powered rover and MoveIt-controlled robotic arms)
  • Gwiz and predictive driving
    (Train an AI to drive the G-Wiz using collected data)

So far, I’ve successfully achieved the first two. The third — predictive driving with the G-Wiz — hasn’t really taken off yet, though it’s still on the roadmap.

In the meantime, I’ve also acquired a whole fleet of Sanbot Elf robots and rebranded Burf.co as a robotics-focused website.

Thanks to changes at work, I’m now spending a lot more time on robotics. That’s not only helped me hit my previous goals faster, but it’s also inspired and refined the next set of objectives I’m working towards

New Goals
These goals aren’t in priority order and will naturally evolve over time, but they represent the next phase in my robotics journey:

  • Create a Sanbot Remote Control App
    Design a controller that streams all sensor data from the Sanbot to a user interface, allowing remote movement and activation of functions.
    — Critical for the robotics rental business idea.
  • Continue to deepen my ROS2 knowledge — this remains vital for both work and personal robotics development.
    — Ongoing learning improves real-world application and problem-solving.
    • Fix bugs around MyCobot280/xArm hardware, so that API works well
    • Finish self-driving course on Udemy
    • Understand SLAM and mapping better so that a robot can travel between rooms
    • Add IMU support
  • Continue Developing the InMoov Humanoids
    —These are great for showcasing my skills and drawing crowds at events.
    • Have an active one for improving Vision and LLM use. Think about using a Neural Net to give personality. Think about gestures.
    • Create a mobile Inmoov robot, even if its remote
    • Consider merging this with the Sanbot remote control app
  • Have Fun with the G-Wiz
    —This one’s for fun, learning, and experimentation.
    • Design a remote-control system (concept-only for now)
    • Add sensors and record journey data
    • Use that data in a self-driving AI test
    • Explore ROS integration for car control

These are some pretty epic goals, and definitely enough to keep me both challenged and inspired. Each one strengthens my experience in robotics across multiple fronts — hardware, AI, mobility, UX, and control systems.

I’ll need to keep an eye on context switching to ensure I stay focused enough on one thing at a time to make meaningful progress.

February 2025: Igniting the fire!

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, in this update we have an exciting title! So what I have I been doing?

Burf.co Blog
So I have spent some time updating the content of the blog in hopes that it will focus me on the future which for me is robotics. I hope to re-ignite my Facebook page and spread my news a little further (when there is something useful to say). I have added an AI page and broken down my robotics projects into technology (LEGO, VEX, Inmoov, and ROS).

It does help me realise that I have still achieved some cool things, not as much as I hoped but progress is continuing. I still have some content to add, so this is a WIP.

MyRobotLab + The Inmoov + LLM = InMoov Remote
So one of my goals was to understand MyRobotLab more and be able to write my own external Python scripts to control the Inmoov Humanoid Robot and the LLM (Ollama) that it uses. It’s still a work in progress but I have made a working demo which can be found here:

Features so far:

  • Consume webcam feed and apply YOLO11 and/or Hand/Face detection
  • Stop and start the robot listening
  • Can get the robot to speak, or respond to a text input (e.g answer a question)
  • Lists all responses back from MRL
  • Can ask the LLM for a response
  • Maps all of the services to JSON so that you can get things like a list of gestures.

Next, I want to put my own LLM layer in so that I can bypass MyRobotLab chatbot. This will allow me to add a database connection so I can record responses to review plus add a memory of sorts.

ROS2 and the Rover Robot
Good news on that front also, I have continued my ROS2 course and I have fixed the major issues with the Rover Robot when trying to get it to use NAV2 and SLAM. It was all to do with the CostMap and inflation_radius. Basically, the obstacles it detected, it inflated their area too much so that it could not plot a route around them.

The aim is to complete the ROS2 course (another course) I am doing on Udemy, refine the Rover Robot so it works a lot better using SLAM and NAV2, and then build a much better version that’s at least half-human-size.

Gwiz and predictive driving
Progress with the Gwiz has sadly stalled at the moment. First, it was the cold weather killing the batteries and now someone has smashed the windowscreen. Autoglass has tried to replace it however it has turned into a bit of a custom job as there are not many Gwizs left on the road.

AI
All of the above heavily realises on AI in some form or another. I now use ChatGTP and other LLMs on a daily basis to help me achieve tasks, at work, I am now training models across data sets to detect trends, anomalies, and insights. It is quite extraordinary how fast it has entered a large part of my life. There is no goal attached to this heading, just a reflection.

Conclusion
Not sure if conclusion is the right word, but focusing on the 3 areas above is at least a good start for me on becoming more focused. Each one could take me into an exciting area, it’s just coming up with the use case and sharing the knowledge.

September 2024: The Reboot Edition

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf Update, I feel this is the re-start of some fun times ahead :). With most people, August was mainly written off due to family holidays (and canceled ones), etc however, now that is over, it’s time to get my head down and focus!

The Elephant has left the room
If you read my last blog post, I wasn’t in the best place however, I honestly feel like I am turning a corner and feel pretty positive about the future 🙂

Burf.co
Since I put Burf.co back to its old state (11th July), it has had 1,186,315 searches which is quite bonkers! Now a lot of this will be bots etc, but it’s still quite an interesting result.

Inmoov Robot
So, I have not done much in fixing my Inmoov robot, but I randomly found another in Wales and have started fixing that, this one will mounted to a mobile platform :). I feel super lucky to find one. I have also dug out the electric wheelchair to pair with the new robot, or at least get the platform working. If you look at the picture you can see the fresh white printed parts which are the bits I have fixed so far.

Camper Van
The camper van had a charging issue which I have managed to fix. The main goal here is to use it regularly :). I also fitted a split charger to the van, I feel like this has some good possibilities.

Sinclair C5
My Sinclair C5 had a meltdown at the same time the Harley blew up (expensive) however, I have also managed to re-wire that and it now works and should be a lot more reliable 🙂

Electric Motorbike
Randomly, I dug out the electric motorbike this weekend, did some welding, and printed a new 3D mount for it. I hope to test it this week

Maths / Brilliant App
I am planning to come back to this soon. I have just started doing a Math diploma I bought last year. I am hoping to get more focus.

Rover Robot / ROS2
I have failed on this because of the personal life issues that have had gone on with the ex (a long story), and the sadly canceled holiday to Vegas (dream holiday) however there have been some silver linings that have put me in a good headspace. I am thankful for this and hopeful for the future.

A5 Laser Engraver
When I went to get the Inmoov Robot from Wales, the epic guy also sold me an A5 ATOMSTACK Laser engraver with software that has been super easy to use. I have managed to cut shapes from this in wood.

Let’s revisit the goals

Life Goals
I originally wanted to get to 85-90KG and I am at 80KG and in good shape. I am proud of my progress here. I would say my health goals are pretty much achieved. I would like to continue running which was going well and doing the gym with Alfie. At some point, I am going to focus on doing a muscle-up. I also carried on being a school governor (barely) and I now have a camper van which relaxes the truck. The loft has lights and I have a large shed.

Education Goals
I finished my MBA and still try to keep on track of new content and the Slack channel. I still try and join a few sessions a month and have been asked to do a session on robotics. I would like to make sure I do this video. I did complete the self-driving course and I have done more Maths this year than most. I would like to do some more Maths this year, however again a pretty good result.

Projects
So the main one was to fix the Inmoov robot which I did do, I also learned the software (MRL) and feel quite happy with the progress I have made. I would like to be more active on the Discord channel and Facebook ground but again, I have achieved a lot. I had parked the electric motorbike project when I hit a big issue however, I am going to give the a quick punt again. I haven’t done a lot with Burf.co however I am not that worried. I did get the mobility scooter and electric wheelchair working via remote control.

Goals for the end of the year
I feel like I have done pretty well so far, I have gained a few more skills (welding, 3D modeling, etc) however I would like to bullet point some top-level items.

  • Stay around 80-82KG (Life)
  • Camp at least 2 more times this year in the VW (Life)
  • Finish the YouTube robotics series of videos (Robotics / Education)
  • Stay on top of being a governor (Life)
  • Do robotic video for MBA course (Robotics)
  • Complete my course on mental health (Education)
  • Re-start the maths learning (Education)

I think that’s pretty easy to achieve, I could keep adding but I feel that does not help me focus on what I want to do.