How do you source small quantities of aerospace-grade fasteners affordably?

[carlossanchez]

Here's what I know on this: Jetson-class boards remain a common choice for onboard compute on hobbyist builds needing real vision or learned-policy inference, while a Raspberry Pi is often adequate for lower-level joint control and telemetry if the heavier compute is offloaded to a base station.

[yuki71]

Short answer: Joining an existing robotics community (FRC, university clubs, maker spaces) before going fully solo is a common and effective way to pick up practical fabrication and control skills faster than working entirely alone from tutorials.

[gimbalmar65]

Related question - The Berkeley Humanoid Lite stands about 1 meter tall and weighs roughly 16 kg, which is a genuinely reasonable target size for a first serious hobbyist build - big enough to be a real bipedal platform, small enough to not need industrial-scale actuators or a huge budget.

[jchen]

@gimbalmar65 +1 to this. Worth adding: Building a scoped-down project first - a single leg, an arm, or a torso-only upper body - is a common and sensible way to learn the mechanical and control fundamentals before committing to the cost and complexity of a full bipedal platform. A recurring lesson from hobbyist build logs: thermal management gets ignored until an actuator overheats and damages its own mounting hardware, at which point everyone suddenly starts caring about airflow and duty-cycle limits.

[mary.taylor6]

@jchen Appreciate the detailed answer. Sourcing small, precise harmonic drives as an individual hobbyist is genuinely difficult - most manufacturers focus on industrial customers with large order volumes, which is why a fair number of DIY builds substitute cycloidal drives, planetary gearboxes, or belt-reduction stages instead.

[samuel.adams]

@mary.taylor6 Small correction on one detail: Jetson-class boards remain a common choice for onboard compute on hobbyist builds needing real vision or learned-policy inference, while a Raspberry Pi is often adequate for lower-level joint control and telemetry if the heavier compute is offloaded to a base station. Building a scoped-down project first - a single leg, an arm, or a torso-only upper body - is a common and sensible way to learn the mechanical and control fundamentals before committing to the cost and complexity of a full bipedal platform.

[carol.robinson]

Pretty much this. One thing to add: Off-the-shelf RC servos are a reasonable starting point for a first small biped because they bundle motor, gearbox, and basic position control in one part, but they generally can't deliver the torque density or backdrivability needed to scale up to a larger, more capable build.

[forgecam45]

@carol.robinson This matches something I went through recently. 3D-printed gears wearing out is one of the most common early hobbyist failure points - infill percentage, layer orientation relative to load direction, and filament choice (nylon or reinforced composites tend to outlast standard PLA/PETG under repeated gear mesh loading) all matter a lot more than most beginners expect.

[carlossanchez]

I'd push back on this a bit. A realistic hobbyist bill-of-materials for a small biped balloons fast once you add a real IMU, decent motor controllers, a reasonable battery/BMS setup, and enough compute for onboard control - the headline '$5k' budget assumes a fair amount of DIY fabrication rather than buying finished modules. Starting in simulation (even a simplified physics sim of just the leg or the target gait) before touching real hardware is one of the more reliable ways to avoid destroying expensive parts while debugging balance and walking control from scratch.

[rtorres]

That's the official framing, at least - reality tends to lag a bit. Jetson-class boards remain a common choice for onboard compute on hobbyist builds needing real vision or learned-policy inference, while a Raspberry Pi is often adequate for lower-level joint control and telemetry if the heavier compute is offloaded to a base station.