How I built my own intelligent Robot Arm from Scratch & Take your home automation to the (dot)next level

How I built my own intelligent Robot Arm from Scratch by Iulia Feroli

Are you tired of the same old AI, LLM, buzzword sessions and wondering if there is still anything new and cool out there we can do with AI? Do you crave an exciting, slightly ridiculous project that's just a lot of fun - while also learning about a whole new field with lots of promise? Don't miss this session!
Physical AI is about bringing together all the amazing breakthroughs (yes, like large language models) into the fields of robotics and embedded systems. We can make autonomous robots and systems that can generate their own movement instructions and evolve, without having to painstakingly define all the complex code or even tiny physics-engine implementations to get going.
But first - we need to build actual robots! As someone coming from the data science field - this may sound like a bit of a leap.
However, with a "I'm sure it can't be that hard" attitude, a bunch of electronics components, and an uncontainable enthusiasm - I set out to do just that.
I will share the story of building my own Robot Arm from 0 to an incrementally more complex prototype, and how I started giving it some "AI superpowers", and what's next in this exciting field!

I will bring my robot arm prototypes to show and control live - an exciting and very different showcase to the "regular" talks!
I'm showing the entire engineering journey - testing out different hardwares, some C++ and Python code examples, using common household items as robot joints, etc - all the way to 3D printed components.
It will be a super fun talk + a lot of takeaways about robotics 101

 

Take your home automation to the (dot)next level

Home automation in 2026 is mostly done in home assistant, which is written in python. For basic automations you can use the drag-and-drop interface it provides, but what if you want to make really complex automations? Did you know you can utilize dotnet to properly program those next level automations. Using the condition of multiple sensors or saving state of some device at the start of the automation is very hard to do with the built-in automation system.

With over 300 devices around my house this session is all about automating them, with dotnet. We will cover factory produced sensors and custom built wifi controllable devices using ESP32's.

- Using an automation to turn on the central ventilation when certain lights in the house turn on?
- Using an automation to take good care of our dog?
- Combining the outdoor weather station with the weather forecast and an electric water faucet to water the garden?

My complex automations run in a docker container which is deployed using a GitHub Action.

Warning: Literally everything is automated in my house and this session might trigger you to spend hours and hours tweaking your own home automation.