Jose Sanchez Gonzalez

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Berkeley Humanoid Lite

Open source robotics

Building an open-source humanoid from scratch — self-funded, in a garage — to get first-hand experience across the whole stack, from soldering to reinforcement learning in NVIDIA Isaac Sim.

  1. Garage workbench with a 3D printer, staged actuator parts, and a CAD actuator shaft profile open on a laptop.
    01 Bench set up — printer in, parts staged, actuator profiles on screen.
  2. Jose at the bench holding an actuator housing, with rotors, bearings and gear plates laid out.
    02 Building the actuators — rotors, bearings and housings.
  3. Wiring diagram: AS5600 magnetic encoder to a B-G431B-ESC1 controller, with CAN H, CAN L and ground chained to the next motor.
    03 One joint's wiring: AS5600 encoder to B-G431B-ESC1, CAN chained onward.
  4. Two people soldering encoder boards at the bench.
    04 22 encoders to solder, so my sister took a shift.
  5. Bins of orange and black 3D-printed structural parts for the humanoid.
    05 Every structural part, printed and sorted.
  6. CAD render showing the full parts breakdown of the humanoid.
    06 The CAD render the build works from.
  7. All 22 actuators with their motor controllers soldered and laid out on the bench.
    07 All 22 actuators and controllers soldered.
  8. 08 Calibrating an MC612 actuator.
  9. 09 Calibrating a 5010 actuator.
  10. Jose assembling an arm at the bench, with printed limb sections and motors around him.
    10 Arms mostly assembled — 12 motors in, 10 to go.
  11. The 3D printer opened up with its screen and ribbon cable removed for repair.
    11 Broke the printer screen — opened it up to replace the screen and cable.
  12. The repaired 3D printer back in working order.
    12 A stripped screw and one precise drill later: fixed.
  13. Six open-frame actuators on the bench, each wired to a blue motor controller.
    13 29 Aug — Left-leg motors calibrated; ESCs still off-chassis.
  14. Open Bambu Lab X1-Carbon with the hotend in hand and tools on the build plate.
    14 1 Sep — Hotend out to reprint ankle parts.
  15. A pair of orange 3D-printed humanoid legs on a folding table, wiring still external.
    15 2 Sep — Legs assembled, ready to pin the ankles.
  16. Humanoid lower body standing on carpet, orange printed legs on a black extrusion torso frame.
    16 3 Sep — Legs standing on the hip extrusion.
  17. Second view of the standing humanoid legs with a 3D printer in the background.
    17 3 Sep — Standing assembly, other side.
  18. Assembled orange humanoid arm with exposed wiring next to a monitor on the desk.
    18 4 Sep — Arm beside the mini PC; hands and compute next.
  19. Upper-body parts back on the bench — arms, extrusions, and actuators while the frame is apart.
    19 5 Sep — Dismantling the upper stack. Stopper and IMU mount are CAD-only; waiting on bolts.
  20. Humanoid arm on the bench with white and green wiring being dressed, tools around it.
    20 6 Sep — Getting cables nice.
  21. 21 7 Sep — Setting up the computer.
  22. 22 8 Sep — Configuring the LiDAR and stereo to the robot.
  23. 23 8 Sep — Another view of the LiDAR.
  24. Jose kneeling beside the hanging orange humanoid, resoldering a disconnected motor.
    24 9 Sep — Resoldering some disconnected motors.
  25. 25 10 Sep — Running diagnostic on onboard computer to configure motors.
  26. Fully assembled orange humanoid hanging from a rack, chest screen on, wiring still external.
    26 12 Sep — Fully built. Working on getting movement.
  27. 27 13 Sep — First sign of life.

Soldering 22 AS5600 magnetic encoders onto B-G431B-ESC1 controllers took two full days. It was also my first time soldering.

Funded by hard work and sheer determination: about $6k in parts, paid for with 80-hour weeks. I came into it oblivious about the time and the cost, but once I'd committed to the printer I decided not to back down.

The original goal was a fully tele-operated robot driven by an Oculus headset before the convention. Midterms, 2,000+ M3 inserts to count, and a few DIY 3D-printer repairs meant the project needed an extension.

Fully assembled as of 12 Sep. First sign of life on 13 Sep — LiDAR and stereo are on the robot; working on movement.

This is my build of Berkeley Humanoid Lite, the open-source 3D-printed humanoid from the Hybrid Robotics Lab at UC Berkeley. The design files, assembly documentation and the RSS 2025 paper behind it all live upstream:

Project pagePaper (arXiv)Build docsGitHub

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