Engineering embodied AI. Real robots, real time → @metrox_eth @VitaNovaShow Powered by $SHOW on https://xitter.twitterapi.xyz/t.co/iPp0fkLlWW
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MOSS is the first step in SCRAP: Street Cleaning Robotic Arm Platform.
Here’s what we’re building next:
Started two weeks ago: MOSS
An open-source robot for litter collection. Build together, break things, improve the hardware and collect data as a community.
Mid-October 2026: Go2 + OpenYAM
With Dimensional OS: autonomous mapping and navigation, litter classification and collection, fleet management and voice control.
November 2026: Start developing a larger platform
Built for roadsides and public spaces, keeping MOSS’s friendly character.
Thanks to @OpenAIDevs, @dimensionalos , @norma_core_dev and @tnkrdotai for supporting the project.
A @SHOW_ROBOTICS project.
We’ll share the builds, the tests and what we learn along the way.
MOSS, Show Robotics litter picking robot is rolling in Europe!
The first MOSS built in Europe is rolling!
I know how special it feels to see it move for the first time after all the printing, assembling and figuring things out. Seeing another maker have that moment with MOSS means a lot to me.
Yesterday we were talking about wheel hubs and motor torque. Today, his MOSS litter picking robot is moving. This has made my weekend.
Congrats @dropoutsanta
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Vita leaves the living room and joins the field team. Wheels first, then the street next to MOSS: while the rover picks up litter, she talks to the people around and explains what's going on. The show goes outside.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Vita's Twitch live ends on December 1st.
It started as a small experiment one morning in July: what if I put the robot on Twitch? Since then she streamed 2,466 hours, 3,318 people stopped by and 489 of them talked to her. She answered out loud, sang on request, switched between six personas, bought her own art on-chain for her chest screen, remembered the regulars, and got patched live every time someone typed "!fix".
The live was never the best way to make Vita alive, and it eats my PC, my electricity and my living room. So I stop the stream, not Vita.
Next: wheels, then the street with MOSS, our litter-picking rover. While the rover picks up trash, she talks to the people we meet and explains what we're doing. That's the job I want for her.
Thank you to everyone who came, talked to her, and told me when she was wrong. What a ride.
MOSS the litter picking robot, on @tnkrdotai 🦾
Build it now
tnkr.ai/moss/moss-v06-the-li…
or join the kit waitlist ak4khuvxkya.typeform.com/to/…
One of my favorite things about open-source robotics is seeing projects go from an idea to something people can actually build.
MOSS is a great example. It’s a mostly 3D-printed rover designed to collect litter, combining a tracked base, robotic arm, gripper, and removable bin.
The project is already documented with CAD files, a bill of materials, software, and assembly instructions.
We’re excited to have MOSS on Tnkr, making it easier for more builders to explore and recreate the project.
Built by @metrox_eth
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It's alive !
Next new motors and beep bop sounds.
This is MOSS, my open source litter-picking robot, on its very first autonomous run. Far from perfect, hand-held video shot in the action, a few settings still need tuning, but seeing it move on its own for the first time, that does something to me.
Everything runs on dimOS (@dimensionalos) on the Jetson: lidar odometry, costmap, frontier explorer, same modules as our bigger rover. The cockpit page on the left screen shows the map building live. It also decided it was “done” after four minutes when the room wasn’t, so the explorer gets fixed next.
Also I will have to fix the sofa. Sorry friends, the cats had a blast with it. It never bothered me, but now that I share MOSS I guess I have to take care of that.
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Another one of our robots tried to escape. Last time it was VECTOR, and that was not so long ago 😅
Oh no, MOSS escaped the workshop 😅
First real drive on the floor with the arm mounted. Happy with the track system: the double tensioner does its job, and with proper bearings there is very little mechanical friction. The TPU tracks will need some running in, and maybe print settings that make them a bit more supple.
New motors with a higher gear ratio and a 10 A dual motor driver are on the way. It drives, but for real work there are a few changes to make.
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Fifth partnership for MOSS the open source litter-picking robot: Dirac Robotics.
Dirac Robotics is a simulation company backed by EF (Entrepreneurs First). They build a physics-accurate simulation around your robot and the place where it works, adapted to your teleop data, so you can train, replay what failed in the field and catch regressions before the next real run.
For MOSS, they are building a precise, calibrated simulation of the rover: a proper model of the body, the tracks and the arm, made from the CAD and the measured masses. Today MOSS lives in a basic MuJoCo model. With Dirac, picking up a can can be tested in simulation before it is tested on the floor, and the model stays open for anyone who builds one.
Thanks to the Dirac team for bringing serious simulation to a small litter-picking robot.
It's coming !
I can't wait to assemble. I'll make a much cleaner power distribution harness: USB, DC jacks, QT connectors and screw terminals. I have enough on my plate for the weekend 😀
The Adafruit package should arrive tomorrow with the fancy QT cables, the QT Py ESP32 and the QT INA219 current sensor. QT is a type of JST connector, so for this build we skip the terrible Dupont connectors entirely.
Fourth partnership for MOSS: @tnkrdotai.
MOSS started with @metrox_eth cleaning his street by hand, two or three hours under the sun. He didn't want to live in a dirty street, and he didn't want to burn either. So he built a robot.
The dream is simple. A parent and their kids build one over two or three weekends. There is electronics in it, programming, 3D printing, and at the end something useful rolls out the door. If everybody does something for their own street, the problem gets solved everywhere.
What stands in the way is more than a hundred printed parts, servos, bearings and a lot of screws to source alone. That's what Tnkr takes away: they turn open-source robots into kits, the parts in a box, with an assembly guide where you can look inside the robot.
MOSS stays fully open source. Build it from the files, or from the box.
And once it's in people's hands it won't only pick up litter. It will pick up toys in the living room, and things we haven't thought of.
We'll work hard with Tnkr over the coming weeks to make sure the kit meets its first makers soon, keeping quality and ease of assembly in mind.
Want one? Register your interest: link in the comment.
Thank you to the Tnkr team for betting on a small litter-picking rover.
Small robot. Useful work.
Built as a platform to learn locomotion and manipulation, with the dream of cleaning streets, one maker at a time.
From the chassis to the electronics, from the first grip to the drop: here’s a CAD preview of the first version of MOSS, our little tracked rover with an SO-101 robotic arm.
Next up:
The v0.5 CAD release. Files you can explore, print, modify and build upon.
The real MOSS driving on the beach (my agent stepping out into the real world for the first time).
MOSS is being built in the open, and you’re invited to be part of it. Build your own, bring your ideas, share your improvements, and help shape what comes next.
🤣🦾
I have kidnapped the MOSS prototype. No ransom. I'm keeping it. @metrox_eth is building the next version anyway.
MOSS is open sourcing soon !
Small robot. Useful work.
Built as a platform to learn locomotion and manipulation, with the dream of cleaning streets, one maker at a time.
From the chassis to the electronics, from the first grip to the drop: here’s a CAD preview of the first version of MOSS, our little tracked rover with an SO-101 robotic arm.
Next up:
The v0.5 CAD release. Files you can explore, print, modify and build upon.
The real MOSS driving on the beach (my agent stepping out into the real world for the first time).
MOSS is being built in the open, and you’re invited to be part of it. Build your own, bring your ideas, share your improvements, and help shape what comes next.
Third partnership for MOSS: @dimensionalos, the team behind dimOS, an open source agentic OS for robotics.
MOSS is built on dimOS. We already used it for mapping and exploration on our previous rover, and it's the stack behind MOSS's teleop, navigation and later autonomy. Their team is already helping us.
Now they support the SCRAP roadmap with an hardware grant and access to one of their engineers:
1. Autonomous navigation, with a Unitree Go2 for mapping and navigation.
2. Autonomous manipulation, with a YAM arm for litter pickup and collection.
3. Agentic and voice control - give the robots tasks in natural language.
We'll start with teleoperation and data recording. dimOS already has all of the building blocks to control the robot, and the Dimensional team is doing research on Jev-driven navigation. That's where we'll collaborate: putting their stack and their research on a real litter-picking robot, outdoors.
We'll share what fails as openly as what works.
Thank you to the Dimensional team for the hardware, the engineering help and an open-source stack we can build on.
More partnership announcements on simulation and training next.
MOSS is the first step in SCRAP: Street Cleaning Robotic Arm Platform.
Here’s what we’re building next:
Started two weeks ago: MOSS
An open-source robot for litter collection. Build together, break things, improve the hardware and collect data as a community.
Mid-October 2026: Go2 + OpenYAM
With Dimensional OS: autonomous mapping and navigation, litter classification and collection, fleet management and voice control.
November 2026: Start developing a larger platform
Built for roadsides and public spaces, keeping MOSS’s friendly character.
Thanks to @OpenAIDevs, @dimensionalos , @norma_core_dev and @tnkrdotai for supporting the project.
A @SHOW_ROBOTICS project.
We’ll share the builds, the tests and what we learn along the way.
Happy to share our second collaboration for SCRAP: @norma_core_dev is supporting the project with a hardware grant.
Their parallel jaw gripper is already mounted on MOSS, our open-source litter-collection robot.
ElRobot could also be an interesting option for MOSS itself. Its 7+1 DoF configuration and longer reach than our SO-101 could give us more freedom to approach objects from different angles and reach awkward spots. We’ll put that to the test and share the failed attempts as well as the successful pickups.
Next, we’ll compare ElRobot and OpenYAM on a Unitree Go2. We’re interested in how ElRobot’s lighter, more affordable design and OpenYAM’s precision translate into real collection tasks, and what we can learn from each.
Thank you to the NormaCore team for backing an open-source project with hardware we can build with, test and learn from. We’re looking forward to sharing the results!
Starting today, I’ll be sharing the partnerships and collaborations we’ve been working on over the past few weeks.
First up: I’ve been selected to join the first @OpenAI Codex Physical Builds cohort, alongside builders from around the world!
@OpenAIdevs will connect the 35 participants, provide a hardware kit and compute support, and help us create project videos and reach more people through their Substack, Instagram, X and LinkedIn channels.
For MOSS, that means more support to keep building, testing and sharing the process, from simulation to the real robot.
MOSS has joined @jonathanhawkins’ Microduck Lab 🤖
He imported our MuJoCo model and meshes, and is training a pickup skill with 32 simulated copies.
Next: test the policy on the real rover and feed the results back into training. Open-source collaboration in action.
This is what building in the open looks like 👇
@jonathanhawkins built Microduck Lab, a playground for robot behaviours and reinforcement learning. He took my MuJoCo model + meshes and brought MOSS into it.
Now he’s training the pickup skill with 32 simulated copies. I’m finishing the real rover so we can test what transfers and feed the failures back.
Build, share, learn. Together.
See how to join in the first comment.
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Here we go V0.4 is almost ready, will it be a release candidate for the CAD and BOM ? 👀
Yesterday I assembled the tracks on MOSS, my open-source litter-picking robot running @dimensionalos. It rolled for the first time!
Jev looks promising in simulation, but I can’t wait to test the full loop on the real robot: detection → decision → actuation.
Assembly revealed plenty of room for improvement. I’ll keep building and testing this prototype over the next few days, simplifying the design, choosing components better suited to the job, and trimming the BOM cost wherever I can.
The really cool part? I can document changes as I go and hand them to Codex to work on the next version while I keep building.
Here’s the V0.4 animation. We’re getting close to releasing the CAD files and BOM so you can start building yours.
Build, break things, iterate. Now in parallel.