Boston Robot Hackers

What's New

Aug 8: Shivam Chopra: Forward and Inverse Kinematics

Shivam is a Senior Medical Device Engineer and Subsystem Technical Lead at Dexcom, where he works on next-generation wearable platforms. Every robotic arm faces the same two fundamental questions: given these joint angles, where is the end-effector? (forward kinematics) — and the harder one: given a target, what joint angles get me there? (inverse kinematics). The math behind both questions is something every roboticist eventually has to reckon with, and this talk is a ground-up walk through it.

posted on: August 06, 2026

July 9: Isaac Vandor talk about maritime robotics

Isaac Vandor is the developer and maintainer for the software running on famous underwater vehicles like Alvin and AUV Sentry. Isaac will talk about his work and experiences with underwater maritime robotics.

posted on: July 09, 2026

June 11: Ankush Dhawan: Meet Pupper, the Open-Source Robot Dog

Ankush is a PhD candidate in Robotics at Stanford University. Meet Pupper: an open-source quadruped robot built at Stanford that can walk, see, listen, and respond to the world around it. Born as a student project and now in its third generation, Pupper has become the centerpiece of Stanford's CS123 course, a teaching platform for AI-enabled robotics, and through the Dr. Pupper project at Stanford Medicine, a companion for children recovering in the hospital.

posted on: June 11, 2026

Meeting Report: Chris Lai on Kalman Filters

Chris Lai and the team from gave a rapidfire talk teaching us about Kalman Filters. Kalman filters are a constant source of confusion. No one doubts their value but it's easy to get lost in trying to understand the math or the right way to use them.

posted on: April 04, 2026

May 7: Adam Ring talk about simulation

Adam Ring will give the talk about simulation in robotics. In this talk, Adam will discuss how the right simulation approach can accelerate development, improve safety, and reduce costly real-world failures.

posted on: April 04, 2026

September 3: Alan Kilian talk: Powering Robots

Alan Kilian, a long time software and hardware person with a lifelong passion for Robotics will speak about aspects of power for robots. Batteries, Measurement, Circuitry and more.

posted on: February 27, 2026

Meeting announcement for March 5: Tom Ryder on current trends in Robotics

We are fortunate to have Tom Ryden, Executive Director of Mass Robotics as our speaker this month. Tom will discuss current trends in Robotics Startups and the industry in general

posted on: January 31, 2026

Meeting announcement for April 2: Kalman Filters

Chris Lai leads the Beaver Works Summer Program at MIT. Chris will discuss the motivation behind the Kalman Filter, and describe why (and most importantly) how it is used.

posted on: January 30, 2026

Meeting announcement for January 8 - URDF and Vibe Coding

Monthly Meeting Announcement January 8 at A2

posted on: December 15, 2025

2026 Meetings and Talks

Speakers for March, April and June 2026

posted on: December 14, 2025

Meeting notes from December main meeting

Thoughts about our December meeting

posted on: December 13, 2025

Meeting Announcement for December 11 at 7:00pm

Featured Talk: Joel Grimm and Christopher Lai will introduce us to the Autonomous RACECAR at MIT's Beaver Works Summer Institute

posted on: December 11, 2025

Introducing Hands-On Meetings!

Hands-on meetings are coming, starting on Oct 23. The usual place and time. Some of us will bring some partial robots or other widgets from our workshops and if you acquire a robot or robot kit before and want help building it or debugging it, bring it along. It will be a two hour meeting, without an agenda!

posted on: September 24, 2025

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Upcoming Meetings

All meetings at Artisans Asylum, 96 Holton Street, Allston

11 Jun 2026 7:00pm	Main Meeting Ankush Dhawan, a PhD candidate in Robotics at Stanford, will introduce Pupper: an open-source quadruped robot dog that walks, sees, listens, and responds. The centerpiece of Stanford's CS123 course and the Dr. Pupper project at Stanford Medicine.
24 Jun 2026 6:00pm	Hands-On Meeting These meetings have no agenda or speaker. Just hacking together. Beginners welcome!
09 Jul 2026 7:00pm	Main Meeting Isaac Vandor is the developer and maintainer for the software running on famous underwater vehicles like Alvin and AUV Sentry. Isaac will talk about his work and experiences with underwater maritime robotics.
22 Jul 2026 6:00pm	Hands-On Meeting These meetings have no agenda or speaker. Just hacking together. Beginners welcome!
06 Aug 2026 7:00pm	Main Meeting Shivam Chopra (one of our members) will give a talk about Forward and Inverse Kinematics. Especially for people working with robot arms this is a very important thing to understand. There is some math involved by Shivam promises that no one will get hurt :)
19 Aug 2026 6:00pm	Hands-On Meeting These meetings have no agenda or speaker. Just hacking together. Beginners welcome!
03 Sep 2026 7:00pm	Main Meeting Alan Kilian, a long time software and hardware person with a lifelong passion for Robotics will speak about aspects of power for robots. Batteries, Measurement, Circuitry and more.
09 Sep 2026 6:00pm	Hands-On Meeting These meetings have no agenda or speaker. Just hacking together. Beginners welcome!