Metal Arm: a $2,499 6-axis CNC robot arm that ships in a week, built on LeRobot
chris_j_paxton · x · 2026-10-14
Robotics researcher Chris Paxton shares MakerMods' Metal Arm, commenting "2.5k per arm. Everything will be robots."
Key details:
- 6 DoF, 3kg payload, full CNC aluminum construction, priced at $2,499 per arm, shipping in one week
- Companion app takes plain-language tasks (e.g. "pick up the water bottle and place it in the white tray") via a World Action Model
- Built on LeRobot: the MakerMods Lab tool (installable with uv tool install) records teleoperated demos as LeRobot datasets, trains policies like ACT on your own GPU or in the cloud, then runs inference on the arm
- Deployments in progress include vineyard stem-grasping, and a middle-schooler won a Physical AI hackathon deploying VLA models on it
More from Embodied
- Welsh politician caught using smart glasses as teleprompter in Senedd debate — nordicinst · 2026-10-15
- New robot dog day: covered unit arrives home, owner wonders if it needs a leash — StewartalsopIII · 2026-10-15
- RoboSimStudio: Claude and GPT build robot digital twins from phone video in an hour — Scobleizer · 2026-10-15
- Formlabs launches Form Studio 1, a $699 professional resin 3D printer — Scobleizer · 2026-10-15
- NVIDIA's ACCRUE: continual off-policy RL cuts real-robot training time by up to 68.5% — nvidia · 2026-10-15
- Robotics Startup Skild AI Celebrates $100M ARR Milestone — deepakpathak · 2026-10-15