Metal2Humanoid — A NAND2Tetris-style Robotics Course

About

This course is structured as five parts inspired by “elements” and a full-stack robotics build path. Each part contains two lectures with expandable units and project overviews.

(Work in progress) Unit content is placeholder for now: ⚙️ In Progress.

Parts

Start at Earth and climb toward Void: from grounded engineering reality to human questions of meaning.

Part I — Earth: Metal → Actuation

≈4 hrs Lectures 1–2 Projects 1–2

Motors, torque, heat, gearing, sensing, drivers, and digital twins — the unit cell of embodiment.

Open Part I →

Part II — Water: Actuation → Motion

≈4 hrs Lectures 3–4 Projects 3–4

Humanoid morphology, URDF/CAD, IK, trajectories, stability, and compliant control.

Open Part II →

Part III — Fire: Motion → Behavior

≈4 hrs Lectures 5–6 Projects 5–6

Skills, manipulation, behavior composition, planning, and robust recovery.

Open Part III →

Part IV — Air: Behavior → Learning

≈4 hrs Lectures 7–8 Projects 7–8

Imitation + RL, sim2real, diffusion policies, and VLA instruction-following.

Open Part IV →

Part V — Void: Learning → Humanoid

≈4 hrs Lectures 9–10 Projects 9–10

Meaning, ethics, labor, safety, openness, and final integration into a cohesive humanoid system.

Open Part V →

Part I — Earth: Metal → Actuation

Lectures: 1–2 · Projects: 1–2 · Total: ≈4 hrs

“The engineer’s first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is.”

— Samuel Florman

Lectures & Units (Expandable)

Lecture 1 — Build a Motor ≈2 hrs · Project 1 Expand ▾

1.1 What a motor really is (electromagnetism intuition) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: canonical intro + mental model + what to measure.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Paper, chapter, GitHub, doc, etc.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
1.2 Torque, speed, power (engineering intuition) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: back-of-the-envelope sizing + power limits.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Specsheets, calculators, or book chapters.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
1.3 Motor types (DC, BLDC, stepper) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: tradeoffs for robotics (control, torque density, cost).

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Comparisons, application notes, guides.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
1.4 Heat, efficiency, and failure modes ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: thermal intuition, derating, smoke-test avoidance.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Thermal notes, motor constants, efficiency curves.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
1.5 Project 1 Overview: build + characterize a motor ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: BOM, tools, steps, what charts/results to produce.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Build walkthrough video.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Repo folder for Project 1.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
1.6 Perspective: why actuators are only one bottleneck ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: systems view + what's coming in later parts.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Short talk / framing clip.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Essay or design note.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Lecture 2 — What is an Actuator ≈2 hrs · Project 2 Expand ▾

2.1 Transmissions: gearboxes & reduction ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: harmonic vs planetary vs cycloidal, backlash, efficiency.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Application notes + teardown references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
2.2 Bearings, shafts, fasteners, tolerances ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: fits, alignment, wear, why things wobble.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Mechanical design references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
2.3 Sensing: encoders, current sensing, torque estimation ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: what sensors you need and what you can estimate.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Encoder docs + motor control notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
2.4 Drivers, ESCs, wiring, and safety ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: power budgets, connectors, noise, grounding, fuses.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ ESC docs + wiring guides.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
2.5 CAD + digital twin basics (actuator module) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: model your actuator, export URDF, sanity-check ranges.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ CAD files + URDF template repo.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
2.6 Project 2 Overview: actuator module + test rig ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: build plan + test plan + logging + deliverables.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Build walkthrough video.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Repo folder for Project 2.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Part II — Water: Actuation → Motion

Lectures: 3–4 · Projects: 3–4 · Total: ≈4 hrs

“Be formless, shapeless—like water.”

— Bruce Lee

Lectures & Units (Expandable)

Lecture 3 — Humanoid Morphology ≈2 hrs · Project 3 Expand ▾

3.1 Kinematic chains: arms, legs, spine, and head ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: chain structure, redundancy, reachability.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Kinematics notes / textbook chapter.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
3.2 DOF, link lengths, and why bodies look the way they do ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: human vs robot morphology, tradeoffs, and constraints.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Reference designs / CAD / papers.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
3.3 CAD → URDF: how to build a usable robot model ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: frames, joint limits, inertias, collisions, visuals.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ URDF docs, examples, templates.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
3.4 Center of Mass: balance and stability (intuitions that matter) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: CoM, support polygon, ZMP intuition, tipping.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Balance basics notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
3.5 Project 3 Overview: assemble the body model + sanity checks ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: build your humanoid skeleton in CAD/URDF, confirm ranges and collisions.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Project walkthrough.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Repo folder for Project 3.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Lecture 4 — Motion & Control ≈2 hrs · Project 4 Expand ▾

4.1 Forward and Inverse Kinematics: numerical IK, constraints, and singularities ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: damped least squares, joint limits, redundancy.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ IK library docs / examples.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
4.2 Trajectories: interpolation, timing, limits, jerk ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: smooth motion, constraints, safe parameterizations.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Trajectory generation references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
4.3 Control: PID vs impedance, position vs torque ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: stability intuition, compliance, safe interaction.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Control references (practical).

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
4.4 Stability and compliance: stepping, stance, and constraint handling ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: stable sequences, constraints, contact transitions.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Walking basics / balance control notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
4.5 Project 4 Overview: make the body move smoothly (IK + trajectories) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: implement IK + trajectory controller in sim (or hardware limb), show smooth motion.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Project walkthrough.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Repo folder for Project 4.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Part III — Fire: Motion → Behavior

Lectures: 5–6 · Projects: 5–6 · Total: ≈4 hrs

“Behavior is always directed toward something.”

— Niko Tinbergen

Lectures & Units (Expandable)

Lecture 5 — Manipulation Skills ≈2 hrs · Project 5 Expand ▾

5.1 What is a “skill”? (interfaces, parameters, success conditions) ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: skills as reusable behaviors with contracts and metrics.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Skill library docs, examples, or notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
5.2 Grasping & contact basics ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: grasping fundamentals, contact forces, friction cones.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Hardware refs, gripper design notes, etc.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
5.3 State machines / behavior trees ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: composing behaviors, FSM vs BT patterns, reactive control.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Skill implementations or tutorials.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
5.4 Robustness and Recovery ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: what skills need to do to be robust and recover from failures.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Robustness and recovery notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
5.5 Project 5 Overview ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: implement manipulation skills with state machines and recovery.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ FSM/BT patterns, recovery templates.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Lecture 6 — Task and Motion Planning ≈2 hrs · Project 6 Expand ▾

6.1 Classical planning intuition ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: define tasks as objectives + constraints + measurable outcomes.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Task spec templates, examples.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
6.2 Task & motion planning ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: combining symbolic reasoning with continuous motion planning.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ BT/FSM examples and templates.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
6.3 Symbolic vs continuous ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: discrete decisions vs continuous execution, bridging the gap.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Planning notes / classic references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
6.4 Failure recovery ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: detecting failures, replanning, recovery strategies.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ TAMP references + example repos.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
6.5 Project 6 Overview: a multi-step behavior with recovery ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: compose 3–6 skills into one task (e.g., pick → carry → place) with recovery.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Project walkthrough.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Repo folder for Project 6.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Part IV — Air: Behavior → Learning

Lectures: 7–8 · Projects: 7–8 · Total: ≈4 hrs

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”

— Alan Turing

Lectures & Units (Expandable)

Lecture 7 — Learning to Walk ≈2 hrs · Project 7 Expand ▾

7.1 Why learning? limits of hand coding ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: when to use learning vs hand-coded behaviors.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Dataset schemas, logging templates.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
7.2 Imitation learning ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: behavior cloning, demonstration collection, covariate shift.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Teleop stack examples.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
7.3 Reinforcement learning basics ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: rewards, value functions, policy gradient methods.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Benchmark/eval guides.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
7.4 Simulation → reality gap ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: sim2real transfer, domain randomization, reality gap challenges.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Vision encoder references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
7.5 Project 7 Overview ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: what “supervision” means in robotics and where it comes from.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Repo folder for Project 7.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Lecture 8 — Generative & VLA Policies ≈2 hrs · Project 8 Expand ▾

8.1 From policies to distributions ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: from deterministic to probabilistic policies.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ IL notes / code examples.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
8.2 Diffusion policies intuition ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: how diffusion models work for robotics policies.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ DAgger references + code.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
8.3 Vision-language-action models ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: VLA models and multimodal robotics policies.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ RL primers + practice repos.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
8.4 Instruction following & grounding ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: how robots understand and follow natural language instructions.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Offline RL references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
8.5 Project 8 Overview ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: project walkthrough and deliverables.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Sim2real + DR references.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Part V — Void: Learning → Humanoid

Lectures: 9–10 · Projects: 9–10 · Total: ≈4 hrs

“The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as whether submarines can swim.”

— Edsger Dijkstra

Lectures & Units (Expandable)

Lecture 9 — Reflection & Meaning ≈2 hrs · Project 9 Expand ▾

9.1 Why humanoids? ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: why build humanoid robots and their unique advantages.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Embodiment essays, key papers, talks.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
9.2 Labor, automation, and power ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: Labor, automation, and power dynamics in robotics.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Labor, automation, and power dynamics in robotics.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
9.3 Trust, safety, alignment ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: building trustworthy and safe robotic systems.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Shared autonomy + interface refs.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
9.4 Sci-fi as design space ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: using science fiction to explore robot futures.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Safety checklists, standards notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
9.5 Manifesto Overview ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: project walkthrough and deliverables.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Ethics readings, policy notes, essays.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)

Lecture 10 — Final Integration ≈2 hrs · Project 10 Expand ▾

10.1 System integration ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: how the five parts connect into one coherent builder mindset.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Course map / summary notes.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
10.2 Debugging embodied systems ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: debugging strategies for physical robot systems.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ License comparisons, standards docs, repo templates.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
10.3 Cost, reproducibility, openness ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: making robotics accessible and reproducible.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Essays, sci-fi, philosophy readings.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
Demo and evaluation criteria ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: Demo and evaluation criteria.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Prompt + examples talk.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Template doc + exemplar projects.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)
10.5 Final build overview ⚙️ In Progress
Placeholder: project walkthrough and deliverables.

🎥 Video (URL)
Open Video ↗ Paste a URL later.

🔗 Link (reading / repo / notes)
Open Link ↗ Integration checklist / BOM template.

📝 Description (what you’ll learn)