drag to orbit · sliders move the joints

strands-arm · one SO-101 pair, one robot

Put the pair on wheels. Give it eyes.

Every SO-101 kit ships a follower that works and a leader that goes back in the box. strands-arm puts the follower on a printed three-wheel base with a Nicla Vision as its eyes, and gives the leader a camera head so it drives the robot and films it.

Print the head tonight 1 h 28 min See it move base + arm

Two arms shipped. One desk.

The pair is bolted to a desk. The leader goes back in the box.

the leader, handle off, head on

01 · the problem

Nine servos, one desk, one tripod

The SO-101 is the arm LeRobot ships its tutorials for. The follower is clamped to a desk and filmed by a webcam on a tripod, one fixed view per dataset. The leader exists for one job, teleop, and idles the rest of the time: six readable, drivable servos on one bus. The three wheel servos of a LeKiwi kit sit in a drawer next to it. Nobody builds for the pair as a robot.

servo 6 into the yoke

02 · the insight

Same servos, same bus, one printed body

Every servo in the box speaks the same protocol. A printed three-wheel body puts the follower on the LeKiwi wheels, an Arduino UNO Q under it, a Nicla Vision on the arm. The leader loses its handle and gains a 15.4 g pan/tilt head: it already knows where it is, so it can drive the robot and film it from a viewpoint that moves. Nothing drilled, ten screws into servos, one guard in front of every write.

the dashboard

03 · the proof

The leader is built. The body is designed. Nothing is hidden.

The leader's head is printed, fitted and on the arm: six servos on one port, the Nicla streaming at 6 to 13 fps, the head tracking a face, teach, replay and named poses working, every joint's real travel measured by hand into the guard and the servos' EEPROM. The base has kinematics, a wheel bus that refuses the arm's port and a 300 ms deadman; its body is three pods and two decks, fit-checked with the folded arm. 1244 tests run, and every guard rule names the dated incident that wrote it. Why the pair · The guard · The base.

By the numbers

10 printed parts 334 g PLA 16.9 h on the X2D 9 servos, one protocol

Head: from the sliced plate, hardware/cad/result.json, PLA 0.20 on a Bambu X2D, tree supports; ten screws, four of them the handle's own. Body: hardware/cad/base/plates/, three pods and two decks, 14.7 h, 311 g, no supports. The head · The base.

The path

Print tonight. Assemble tomorrow. Then let it find home.

01

Print it

The head: one plate, three parts, 1 h 28 min, 15.4 g. The body: three plates, 14.7 h, 311 g, no supports.

Print guide → 02

Assemble it

Handle off the leader, six steps, ten screws, all into servos. The lid snaps on.

Six steps → 03

Calibrate it

strands-arm calibrate finds the folded home from the stops; --mode manual lets your hand measure the whole travel.

How it finds home → 04

Run it

Live 3D mirror, camera, IMU, ToF, a drive pad for the wheels, a chat agent. Also a CLI and MCP tools.

Dashboard →

What you need

One board. One computer. Two prints.

For the leader's head, the new spend is the Nicla Vision and six screws. For the body, it is the UNO Q and the PLA; the wheel servos, wheels, hubs, adapter and pack are the LeKiwi kit. Flash the Nicla with four files, then install from the clone:

git clone https://github.com/cagataycali/strands-arm
cd strands-arm && pip install -e ".[dashboard]"
strands-arm doctor      # read-only
strands-arm calibrate   # finds home
strands-arm dash        # :8090

already in the boxes	you add
SO-101 pair: twelve STS3215, two bus adapters, their supplies	one Arduino Nicla Vision per camera, micro-USB along the bus
the four horn screws under the leader's handle	2 × M2.5 × 5, 4 × M2 × 4 self-tap for the head
LeKiwi kit: three STS3215 12 V, three 60 mm omni wheels, brass hubs, 3S pack, 12 to 5 V converter	an Arduino UNO Q 4 GB
	15.4 g of PLA for the head, 311 g for the body; plates sliced for a Bambu X2D, STLs in hardware/cad/ for any slicer