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Selected work 2026

Bot Ross

I gave Astra a robot arm and a paintbrush, and asked it to paint.

Astra painting the Golden Gate Bridge with an SO-101 robot arm.

Learning between brushstrokes

The setup uses a Hugging Face SO-101 arm. Astra plans a minute of actions at a time, monitors progress through a camera, and adjusts as it goes. I give it feedback between attempts and ask what it can do better; it updates its own instructions.

The progression across painting attempts.
Astra describing how it corrects the camera and canvas alignment
The model checking its calibration and correcting its next strokes.

“i want one!”

Sam Altman's quote-post of the robot painter: i want one!
Sam Altman’s quote-post, September 8, 2026. Click to open the original.
© 2026 Thijs Simonian