Brian Machado
I make robots (and tools for making better robots)
Projects · 42
Bracket Bot
The lowest-cost, highest-performance robot in the world, with its SLAM, navigation, perception and manipulation models built in-house.
2 picturesGlobe Explorer
A discovery engine: type any topic and it builds a visual, structured page on it, "a custom Wikipedia page on anything you want". It reached millions of users and over $100k in monthly recurring revenue, and was #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.
Globe Translator
A Globe experiment on one idea: "language models are representation translators". Type something in and get it back in another representation, such as a chart, a table or a diagram.
fastask
The fastest way to get answers in the command line: type ask and a question, get a short numbered list of commands, then ask 2 to run the second. Open source, with a free hosted model by default.
bb sim
Drive BracketBot's balance and manipulation policies in MuJoCo, no robot required.
2 picturesLeaf-picking robot
A robot that picks up leaves one at a time. Nat Friedman posted that he wanted "a quiet little robot that picks leaves up one at a time and puts them in a bag"; I replied asking for a $15K grant to build it that summer, and he answered "Grant inbound. Make it happen!" Built over the summer of 2024 with Clay Haight and Anson Yu.
Bracket Bot Hackathon
A weekend robot hackathon I organised at the University of Waterloo as my graduating gift: 37 teams each got a robot kit I designed, and over 100 people built their first robot.
4 picturesMAG-Z wireless follow focus
A wireless follow-focus system for cinema cameras on motion-control robot arms: a custom brushless motor unit with its FOC controller built in, and a Python app for drawing focus moves as Bezier curves. First used to shoot a Maestro Fresh Wes music video.
2018 "Vanguard" - FRC 1360 Orbit Robotics Power Up Robot
FIRST Robotics team 1360's robot for the 2018 game, Power Up. As design lead I designed the majority of the robot: a cascading elevator that reaches the top in under half a second, and one of the fastest intakes in the world. It won the team's first event ever.
4 picturesCustom CNC Router V2
A 20 x 30 inch CNC router I designed and built from scratch to cut aluminum, steel and hard plastics, with parts accurate to +/- 0.002 inches. 234 likes and over 1,800 downloads on GrabCAD.
2 picturesCV-1 Low Cost Ventilator
A low-cost ventilator designed, built, programmed and tested in a little over a week during COVID-19, with ICU doctors and engineers validating the design: under $500 USD in easily sourced parts, with adjustable PEEP, tidal volume, pressures and breathing rate.
2 picturesQuadruped with a low-cost actuator
A quadruped robot designed around an inexpensive actuator of my own: a 6.15:1 planetary gearbox with the motor built in and bearings made from races and metal BBs, and an inverse-kinematics program that plans its steps over obstacles.
Microbots Hackathon
A weekend hardware hackathon I organised in Kitchener where people built their own small robots on CodeCell boards and kept them, with the boards, 3D printers, soldering stations and hardware supplied. 115 guests.
AI Agent Hackathon
A one-day hackathon I co-hosted and mentored at Communitech in Kitchener to build AI agents that do real things, with challenges like being the first to order a pizza to the hackathon with an agent. 124 guests and $1,500 in prizes.
3 picturesF4 CADathon 5: 1st Place - Team 62: Orbit Torque
A full robot designed in SolidWorks in 72 hours, with a 3-stage telescoping arm whose gearbox also lets it climb. 1st place of over 174 participants, and the VEXPRO award.
Audite
An affordable gadget that lets a hearing-impaired person see what was said around them, and where it was said, using sound triangulation and speech-to-text. A winner at Hack the North 2018, presented live at the closing ceremony.
5 picturesRe-Bolt
Re-bolt is a compact and efficient solution that instantly sorts any pile of bolts. It uses a built-in camera to track bolts on a conveyor belt and organize them by length into 6 unique compartments.
"Sawblade" 3lb Full Body Spinner Battlebot
A 3 lb full-body spinner battlebot I designed and built to compete at BotBrawl Kitchener: a single-piece body machined on my own CNC router, for under $50 in materials.
PnP interactive learning artifact
An interactive artifact to help people understand PnP intuitively.
F4 CADathon 4: 1st Place - Team 6: Orbit Torque
Designed start to finish in 3 days: a shifting drive gearbox and a stacking system that releases the game pieces by reclining. 1st place, and the Analog Devices award.
F4 CADathon 6: 2nd Place - Team 62: Orbit Torque
My fourth F4 CADathon robot, designed in SolidWorks in a weekend, with the e-chain fully integrated in the elevator. 2nd place of over 150 participants.
11 picturesF4 CADathon: Team 62 Orbit Torque
The first robot I ever fully designed, in a 72-hour CAD competition: a 2-stage cascading elevator with a 4-bar linkage and a piston-operated cam. 1st place.
2019 FIRST robot - FRC 1360 Orbit Robotics
FIRST Robotics team 1360's 2019 robot. In a more advisory role that year, I designed the drivetrain and the cascading elevator, with a custom bearing block system, and reviewed the intake designs.
2017 "Kuiper" - FRC 1360 Orbit Robotics Steamworks Robot
FIRST Robotics team 1360's robot for the 2017 game, Steamworks: my first season as design lead, after teaching myself SolidWorks over the summer of 2016.
4 pictures"Chardgit" Yo-Yo Battery Pack Concept
A normal-sized yo-yo holding 2,400 mAh of Li-ion batteries that charge as you spin it, with a custom charging PCB that shows the battery level.
2 pictureschatPID
Objective : Provide seamless navigation for a robot by leveraging Language Models.
threebody
Python simulation of stable three bodies, animating through eachother
esopen
See every file your Mac opens, live, and which apps touch your private data. One Python file on top of Apple's eslogger.
placeholdAR
Placehold AR is a cutting edge app designed to integrate StockX's products and Wayfairs furniture into a virtual space where one can experience them.
FaceSecurity
An all in one remote door / venue security system that can identify close friends, or intruders, and chose whether to open the door without the need for your intervention.
Foldable Clothes Hanger
A clothes hanger that folds to go through a shirt's collar without stretching it.
SOLIDWORKS Sunglasses Wayfarer
Sunglasses designed to practice more organic shapes in SolidWorks.
A salter
An automated robot that uses numerous sensors to prepare for winter storms by salting, breaking ice, and plowing snow.
SlackPybot
An interactive Slack bot that uses APIs to gather information. Built at Hack the North 2017.
4 Axis CNC Control
A final term project, graded 100%: a small 4-axis CNC whose C++ software reads line drawings with OpenCV, turns them into its own G-code and runs a PID position controller, with a calibration routine that keeps it from crashing into an obstruction.
git commit.
software
2023
Image Organization Tool — As requested by Will Depue, this finds all the images on your filesystem and labels them with GPT4V, and then sorts them into folders with symlinks
software
2021
8-bit computer — An 8-bit computer built from scratch using a kit to apply digital logic and electronics concepts.
hardware
2026
liene pixcut s1 api — Reverse-engineered macOS Bluetooth API for the Liene PixCut S1 (DHP700) dye-sublimation sticker printer. Print and cut stickers from the command line.
software
2018
HQ Trivia Neural Net
other
2017–2018
OrbitScout
other
Writing
A late night conversation on putting sound on a mobius strip turned into understanding music's underlying waveforms. Aug 25, 2024Art requires dictatorship
To make anything great, one consistent entity must be in control. Feb 17, 20242 types of engineering
Engineering is an art, or it is a tool.