A lab notebook for small-budget robot learning, vision-language-action models, and embodied AI experiments — including the ones that fail.https://merry-and-pippin.net/enhttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/can-a-robot-learn-81-pick-and-place-routes-from-only-25/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/can-a-robot-learn-81-pick-and-place-routes-from-only-25/Testing whether ACT, SmolVLA, and π0.5 can generalize to novel cube-to-cup routes after training on only 25 of 81 start-goal combinations.Mon, 14 Sep 2026 13:23:09 GMThttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/teaching-merryn-and-pippin-a-new-trick/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/teaching-merryn-and-pippin-a-new-trick/Training an ACT imitation-learning policy for 20,000 steps and turning SO-101 demonstrations into autonomous movement with LeRobot.Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:11:00 GMThttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/the-commands-behind-my-lerobot-workflow/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/the-commands-behind-my-lerobot-workflow/The command-line workflow I use to collect LeRobot datasets, train ACT policies, and run ACT or SmolVLA inference on my two-camera SO-101 setup.Sun, 23 Aug 2026 13:02:00 GMThttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/giving-my-so-101-two-ways-to-see/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/giving-my-so-101-two-ways-to-see/How I equipped a LeRobot SO-101 with Logitech Brio 100 table cameras, a DFRobot FIT0701 wrist camera, and custom 3D-printed mounts.Tue, 18 Aug 2026 08:02:00 GMThttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/calibrating-the-lerobot-so-101/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/calibrating-the-lerobot-so-101/Calibration was painless and straightforward. With the leader and follower assembled and connected, I followed the official Hugging Face LeRobot procedure and calibrated the two arms without any notable problems.Sun, 16 Aug 2026 12:20:00 GMThttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/the-servo-was-innocent/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/the-servo-was-innocent/The error appeared in software, so naturally I began by suspecting the most expensive piece of hardware.Sat, 15 Aug 2026 08:32:00 GMThttps://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/untitled-post/https://merry-and-pippin.net/posts/untitled-post/The structural parts were printed on a **Prusa MINI+** using PETG from [Prusament](https://prusament.com/pl/materials/prusament-petg/) and [ROSA3D](https://www.rosa3d.pl/filament/pet-g). PETG made sense for a working prototype: these were not display pieces but brackets, housings, links, and joints that would be handled, screwed together, taken apart, and—although I did not know it yet—occasionally printed again.Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:05:00 GMT