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Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

@ihorbeaver • 10,384 subscribers

Making physical products too cheap to meter

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The advantage of developing own robot arm - you can turn everything over the top.

The advantage of developing own robot arm - you can turn everything over the top.

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Over the past month, we completely switched to frontier LLMs to control a robot in a customer deployment. By doing this, we have a classic System 1/System 2 architecture, but on steroids. For the high-level reasoning layer, we use an agent based on Opus and Astra, which are many generations more capable than any VLA. For the fast execution layer, we use computer vision code written by the model, which is fast, editable, and reliable. As a bonus, we got in-context learning, which is just a basic feature of LLMs, and continual learning, since whenever a new situation arises, the large model steps in and adapts the pipeline. And it just feels better to be on the right side of the Bitter Lesson, benefiting from the billions being invested in frontier models around the world.
1:37
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Over the past month, we completely switched to frontier LLMs to control a robot in a customer deployment. By doing this, we have a classic System 1/System 2 architecture, but on steroids. For the high-level reasoning layer, we use an agent based on Opus and Astra, which are many generations more capable than any VLA. For the fast execution layer, we use computer vision code written by the model, which is fast, editable, and reliable. As a bonus, we got in-context learning, which is just a basic feature of LLMs, and continual learning, since whenever a new situation arises, the large model steps in and adapts the pipeline. And it just feels better to be on the right side of the Bitter Lesson, benefiting from the billions being invested in frontier models around the world.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

91,607 views • 4 days ago

We’re shipping an interchangeable gripper. Our main goal, as usual, is to make modern AI tools work in environments where you need reliability. Humanoid hands have their use cases, but it’s hard to pick up a tool firmly and control precisely with them. We made an alternative - an interchangeable gripper. The tool is fixed to the gripper in advance, and the whole hand is swapped. AI is quite good at generating this kind of custom tooling.
0:54
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We’re shipping an interchangeable gripper. Our main goal, as usual, is to make modern AI tools work in environments where you need reliability. Humanoid hands have their use cases, but it’s hard to pick up a tool firmly and control precisely with them. We made an alternative - an interchangeable gripper. The tool is fixed to the gripper in advance, and the whole hand is swapped. AI is quite good at generating this kind of custom tooling.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

929,988 views • 3 months ago

Model precision test. Trained with 2 minutes examples.
1:09
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Model precision test. Trained with 2 minutes examples.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

323,938 views • 3 months ago

Introducing an AI robotic integrator. An agent that handles an entire deployment for MicroFactory end-to-end. Powered by the latest Astra and Opus models, it designs tooling, writes computer vision code, and guides a human operator, taking care of all the boring parts of hardware production. Demos:
2:07
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Introducing an AI robotic integrator. An agent that handles an entire deployment for MicroFactory end-to-end. Powered by the latest Astra and Opus models, it designs tooling, writes computer vision code, and guides a human operator, taking care of all the boring parts of hardware production. Demos:

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

53,336 views • 21 days ago

Introducing MicroFactory A robot that automates repetitive manual work — starting with electronics assembly.
1:24
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Introducing MicroFactory A robot that automates repetitive manual work — starting with electronics assembly.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

723,289 views • 1 year ago

We need self-replicating factories. Reindustrialization won't happen against economic laws. Manufacturing has to be competitive worldwide. And improving existing factories, even with automation, is not enough. Only 30-40k robots were installed in the US last year, so the pull from existing factories is weak. They’re good. Humanoids are being promised as the solution. But who will build them? Still humans. Humanoids not optimised for self-build. The most practical solution to these problems is a self-replicating factory. It will build humanoids, enable the US reindustrialization, and help colonise other planets as a side product. Who should I talk to? I’m assembling people who think the same way.
1:26
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We need self-replicating factories. Reindustrialization won't happen against economic laws. Manufacturing has to be competitive worldwide. And improving existing factories, even with automation, is not enough. Only 30-40k robots were installed in the US last year, so the pull from existing factories is weak. They’re good. Humanoids are being promised as the solution. But who will build them? Still humans. Humanoids not optimised for self-build. The most practical solution to these problems is a self-replicating factory. It will build humanoids, enable the US reindustrialization, and help colonise other planets as a side product. Who should I talk to? I’m assembling people who think the same way.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

20,372 views • 14 days ago

Got a random question today. "Do you think the microfactory could sew the leather covering onto a softball? 🥎" An agent two hours later:
1:28
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Got a random question today. "Do you think the microfactory could sew the leather covering onto a softball? 🥎" An agent two hours later:

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

17,530 views • 17 days ago

Here is the full run of MicroFactory, that autonomously assembles a photo frame - a real product sold on Amazon. This is a good example of how to deal with complex tasks, while we do not yet have a large set of robotic data to train a big general ai model. Thread:
4:35
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Here is the full run of MicroFactory, that autonomously assembles a photo frame - a real product sold on Amazon. This is a good example of how to deal with complex tasks, while we do not yet have a large set of robotic data to train a big general ai model. Thread:

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

210,535 views • 11 months ago

Strong magnets can make the environment self-resetting.
0:30
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Strong magnets can make the environment self-resetting.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

96,328 views • 4 months ago

We have news! We created a new robotics model called Loop Model 1. On the zip-tie insertion task, it achieves 20x more throughput per unit of data than "Pi06 + RLT" from Physical Intelligence, a top model for such tasks. It’s the missing piece that makes MicroFactory work, because now deployment becomes so simple and fast that our users can do it themselves.
3:35
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We have news! We created a new robotics model called Loop Model 1. On the zip-tie insertion task, it achieves 20x more throughput per unit of data than "Pi06 + RLT" from Physical Intelligence, a top model for such tasks. It’s the missing piece that makes MicroFactory work, because now deployment becomes so simple and fast that our users can do it themselves.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

77,133 views • 5 months ago

Introducing MicroFactory DevKit The first production version of MicroFactory — a general-purpose robot designed to automate manual work. With a glimpse of self-replication.
1:26
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Introducing MicroFactory DevKit The first production version of MicroFactory — a general-purpose robot designed to automate manual work. With a glimpse of self-replication.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

131,138 views • 11 months ago

Watch me automate an assembly task in 5 minutes using MicroFactory. We don’t need to wait for some distant future to automate the final assembly of a gadget. The modern AI stack can already do this simply and cheaply. Demo:
1:42
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Watch me automate an assembly task in 5 minutes using MicroFactory. We don’t need to wait for some distant future to automate the final assembly of a gadget. The modern AI stack can already do this simply and cheaply. Demo:

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

30,108 views • 3 months ago

The advantage of arms with industrial internals is that they don’t wobble, so the AI model can control it faster by just multiplying frames per second. Here’s we multiplied the FPS by 3× compared to teleoperation (180 instead of 60).
0:44
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The advantage of arms with industrial internals is that they don’t wobble, so the AI model can control it faster by just multiplying frames per second. Here’s we multiplied the FPS by 3× compared to teleoperation (180 instead of 60).

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

70,439 views • 9 months ago

Full run and a segment of a task. 100% from 16 examples. To play with continuous learning, your base model needs to be data-efficient and stable, which we tested here, because any irrelevant fluctuations can compound over time.
0:55
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Full run and a segment of a task. 100% from 16 examples. To play with continuous learning, your base model needs to be data-efficient and stable, which we tested here, because any irrelevant fluctuations can compound over time.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

25,344 views • 2 months ago

Threading the needle with our robotic arm. Good autonomy can’t be achieved without a solid arm to begin with.
0:35
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Threading the needle with our robotic arm. Good autonomy can’t be achieved without a solid arm to begin with.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

81,849 views • 1 year ago

Robotic insight 2: One undocumented feature of VLA models is that they can generalize pretty well from very little data, if you run them on good hardware. Here, with 35 demonstrations (5 mins in total), robot can pick up small pcb from any position and at any rotation angle.
0:41
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Robotic insight 2: One undocumented feature of VLA models is that they can generalize pretty well from very little data, if you run them on good hardware. Here, with 35 demonstrations (5 mins in total), robot can pick up small pcb from any position and at any rotation angle.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

47,571 views • 9 months ago

Bare imitation learning without robotic pre-training is an unfairly overlooked area. (it doesn't even have a name) When done right, it has the advantages of programming. It’s reliable, predictable, easy to modify and debug. The only difference is that the source of truth is a small dataset instead of code. And it is glued together by a vision encoder and a transformer model instead of being compiled. It's hard to imagine how Claude Code could appear without a ton of production-grade source code hardened over years of real use. Same for robotic models. Here is the robustness of such a model. It was trained on orange zip ties with no lighting changes.
0:24
ihorbeaver's profile picture

Bare imitation learning without robotic pre-training is an unfairly overlooked area. (it doesn't even have a name) When done right, it has the advantages of programming. It’s reliable, predictable, easy to modify and debug. The only difference is that the source of truth is a small dataset instead of code. And it is glued together by a vision encoder and a transformer model instead of being compiled. It's hard to imagine how Claude Code could appear without a ton of production-grade source code hardened over years of real use. Same for robotic models. Here is the robustness of such a model. It was trained on orange zip ties with no lighting changes.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

20,322 views • 3 months ago

How to keep your fingers clean while eating chips? Use a robot! - $250 opensource robot with most advanced AI models inside (Tesla bot and Figure use them too) - 15 minutes of examples - $3 for training in Google Collab - Don't hesitate to give a star to the repo if it's interesting:
1:01
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How to keep your fingers clean while eating chips? Use a robot! - $250 opensource robot with most advanced AI models inside (Tesla bot and Figure use them too) - 15 minutes of examples - $3 for training in Google Collab - Don't hesitate to give a star to the repo if it's interesting:

Igor Kulakov

80,442 views • 1 year ago

Below is our open-source arm assembled by one of the discord members! Also, today Physical Intelligence shared their incredible top-notch robotics model Pi0. And I just want to remind you that you can use our arm together with this model and with LeRobot The arm has the same DOF as the arm used by Pi0, but has smaller size and cost starts from 200$ per arm. You can use better motors like we did in our demos, then it will be more precise and stable but the price will be about $600 per arm. Printable files, purchase list, and help with the assembly - in our discord channel.
0:25
ihorbeaver's profile picture

Below is our open-source arm assembled by one of the discord members! Also, today Physical Intelligence shared their incredible top-notch robotics model Pi0. And I just want to remind you that you can use our arm together with this model and with LeRobot The arm has the same DOF as the arm used by Pi0, but has smaller size and cost starts from 200$ per arm. You can use better motors like we did in our demos, then it will be more precise and stable but the price will be about $600 per arm. Printable files, purchase list, and help with the assembly - in our discord channel.

Igor Kulakov (MicroFactory)

53,938 views • 1 year ago