It’s been a very busy first week. So much so that I had to write up an update.
jimsynz
Ash Core Team
jimsynz
Ash Core Team
jimsynz
Ash Core Team
jimsynz
Ash Core Team
Week four progress update for Beam Bots - the Elixir robotics framework.
Highlights:
- Collision detection system (broad phase AABB + narrow phase primitives)
- IK solvers can now reject self-colliding solutions
- Commands converted from Tasks to GenServers for interruptibility (E-stop actually stops mid-motion now)
- New Parameters widget for Livebook
- WidowX 200 arm running real motions with DLS inverse kinematics
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jimsynz
Ash Core Team
Busy week for Beam Bots - four new repositories shipped:
- bb_reactor - Reactor saga orchestration for robot task sequencing. Compensation/rollback, dependency-driven concurrency, event-driven execution. Wrote a whole post on Beyond Behaviour Trees: Task Orchestration the Elixir Way | Beam Bots.
- feetech + bb_servo_feetech - Driver for Feetech/WaveShare STS/SCS serial servos (the affordable ones used in SO-101 arms). Still buggy, but it’s a start.
- proposals - Lightweight RFC repo. See what’s planned, propose features, or pick something up if you’re keen.
Other updates:
- BB v0.13 adds reactive controllers (Threshold, PatternMatch) for event-driven safety interlocks
- Simulation mode now auto-creates position estimators so the 3D view actually updates
- bb_servo_robotis finally on Hex (no longer “release imminent”)
Full post: Week Five: Tasks Get Orchestrated, Roadmaps Get Transparent | Beam Bots
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jimsynz
Ash Core Team
Week Six: Balance Bots and Command Categories
Weekly progress update for the Beam Bots robotics framework:
Highlights:
- Collaborating with Gus Workman (Nerves Core Team / Protolux) on a balance bot add-on for the upcoming Nerves Starter Kit - great for workshops and getting-started content
- bb v0.15.0 - Command categories with configurable concurrency limits. Run motion and sensing commands in parallel, or limit categories to one-at-a-time
- bb v0.14.0 - BB.Sensor.Mimic for mechanically-linked joints (e.g. WidowX-200 gripper fingers)
- feetech v0.2.1 - Fixed sign-magnitude encoding for signed registers
Proposals: Six proposals merged (bb_teleop, bb_policy, bb_dataset, bb_mcp, bb_tui, bb_motion_planning). Two new ones open: Usage Rules and bb_mavlink.
Full post: Week Six: Balance Bots and Better State Machines | Beam Bots
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jimsynz
Ash Core Team
Week seven progress update for Beam Bots:
- New proposal: bb_jido - Integrating the Jido autonomous agent framework for goal-directed robot behaviour. Where bb_reactor handles “how do I execute this workflow?”, Jido agents handle
“what should I do next to achieve this goal?” - Proposals still open: Usage Rules (0007) and bb_mavlink (0008) are looking for feedback
Quieter week on releases, but the proposal is worth a read if you’re interested in how autonomous decision-making could layer on top of structured workflows.
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jimsynz
Ash Core Team
The latest Beam Bots progress update is out:
- bb_example_so101 is on GitHub — a complete Phoenix app for the SO-101 robot arm (6-DOF, Feetech STS3215 servos). Includes web dashboard with 3D visualisation, servo setup wizard, and calibration tooling
- Simulation mode — set SIMULATE=1 and run the whole thing without hardware. No servos required to explore the framework
- Two Feetech bug fixes — sync_read buffer threading at 1Mbaud (responses from 6 servos were stomping each other) and stale-goal torque impulse prevention on arm (servos no longer lurch violently on startup)
- New releases — feetech v0.2.2, bb_servo_feetech v0.2.1, bb_servo_pigpio v0.5.0, bb v0.15.1
Full write-up: Week Nine: No Hardware Required | Beam Bots
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joelpaulkoch
Cool to see the progress! It’s a shame I couldn’t find time for Beam Bots yet apart from following along the blog posts and reading some tutorials. Now I finally put running the SO-101 in simulation mode on my todo list for this week.
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jimsynz
Ash Core Team
Beam Bots progress update — the quiet fortnight edition:
- Gus Workman gave Beam Bots a shoutout in his Nerves Meetup EU talk about the official Nerves Starter Kit — balance bot plans brewing
- Servo driver architecture rework underway for smoother coordinated moves and better serial bus management across Feetech and Robotis integrations
- Nx 0.11.0 bumped in bb core — FP8 support, multi-device execution via Nx.Mesh, and Nx.runtime_call/3
- Dependabot kept the ecosystem tidy while I was elbow-deep in serial protocols
Full post: Week Eleven: The Quiet Fortnight | Beam Bots
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