Real-Life WALL-E Robot + SPAN Robotics
Final master's project started in January 2026 and documented publicly through my "Day X building real life WALL-E" posts. The goal is an autonomous small-trash collection robot that can roam open spaces, pick up litter, store it onboard, and eventually return to a disposal point. Development moved through fast hardware/software iterations: simplifying arm kinematics from a stepper/CNC baseline to servo actuation, building a three.js web control interface that streams joint targets to an ESP32, designing and printing a compact chassis with custom bevel-gear drive, integrating PS5 teleoperation, packaging electronics around a Jetson Orin Nano, and training a YOLO segmentation model on the TACO dataset to estimate grasp centroids. This project became the technical foundation for SPAN Robotics and its broader clean-space system concept.
Current CAD model with interactive 3D viewing and mobile AR support.
Day 1 (Jan 30): project goal and initial architecture, including the pivot from complex stepper/CNC controls toward a simpler servo-based arm.
Day 2 (Jan 31): three.js web interface drives arm kinematics and streams joint values to the ESP32 over serial.
Day 3 (Feb 1): chassis redesign pivoted to a single front wheel approach for tighter steering and better internal packaging.
Days 4-5 (Feb 3-4): printed chassis components, integrated custom bevel gearing, and planned electronics packaging around Jetson Orin Nano plus microcontroller control.
Day 6 (Feb 6): first successful chassis control test with PS5 teleoperation through ESP32.
Day 7 (Feb 9): resolved servo power brownouts by rerouting servo 5V supply to a regulated rail and planning a dedicated 12V-to-5V board.
Day 8 (Feb 17): first successful trash pickup during manual operation, validating end-to-end mechanical feasibility.
Day 9 (Feb 19): computer vision milestone using YOLO segmentation trained on TACO to detect trash regions and compute grasp-point centroids.