02 · Mobile Manipulation

Teaching a robot to tidy a home

A Stretch 3 robot that finds cups, picks them up, and returns them autonomously.

Role

Robotics engineer · perception to action

Year

2022

Hello Robot Stretch 3 mobile manipulator reaching toward a cup

In one sentence

The robot completed the full loop—from finding a cup to grasping and placing it—without a human guiding each movement.

01 · The problem

Why this mattered

Everyday objects live in cluttered, changing spaces. A useful home robot needs to coordinate perception, navigation, and manipulation—not just execute a scripted arm motion.

02 · My work

From idea to system

With Gautam Balaji, I built the complete pick-and-place behavior for Stretch 3 and connected scene understanding to autonomous base and arm motion.

03 · The result

What moved

The robot completed the full loop—from finding a cup to grasping and placing it—without a human guiding each movement.

Next projectAn eight-foot drone built for rescue