Photo: the MABEL authors, CC BY 4.0
Sharing an open-source robot I think many here will like: MABEL, by the MABEL team at NYU and the University of Toronto.
What it is:
- 56 degrees of freedom: a three-wheel swerve base, a vertical lift, a pitching torso and a 3-DOF head with stereo cameras
- Two 7-DOF arms (derived from OpenArm) and two 17-DOF hands (derived from ORCA Hand)
- Teleoperated with a single Apple Vision Pro
All of it is open:
- Hardware: CERN-OHL-S-2.0
- Software: Apache-2.0
- Docs and photos: CC BY 4.0
Cost: the creators’ own parts list puts the Essential build at about $8,056 in parts (July 2026 prices), with the Recommended and Maximum builds at about $9,283 and $14,721. A few items aren’t costed yet: the hands’ frames and tendons, two Teensy 4.1 boards and the custom PCBs.
Source, by the MABEL authors: GitHub - robotmabel/open_mabel: MABEL: open-source mobile bimanual robot — hardware, firmware, control, ROS 2, simulation, learning · GitHub
Disclosure: I run Robotheca, a catalogue of buildable open-source robots. I’ve put MABEL’s parts list, licences, a 3D view and a browser simulation on one page: MABEL: home robot, CAD/STL files · Robotheca. All credit goes to the MABEL authors.
A question for anyone who has built OpenArm or ORCA Hand: how have the arms and the tendon-driven hands held up in regular use?