Apply for a Robot grant
$1M in grants available
Build robots with us.
Palladium provides hardware, grants, mentorship, and a public stage. All contributions are open source (MIT).
Palladium sponsors $1M in robot grants. The Microduck, Table Tennis, and Open Build grants run on HIM Arena, where you submit your policy or simulation directly.
Make the duck play sports.
Build Microduck a sport for the $2,500 Best Sports Sim prize, or create its next look for the $500 Most Creative Outfit prize.
Every eligible account starts with a one-time 2,500-credit welcome bonus for compute.
Enter the Microduck Challenge
arena.himrobotics.com
Complete the rally in sim. Then do it on the real robot.
Download ~30 GB of real table-tennis data, train a policy, test it in simulation, and publish a comparable result.
When your policy passes hardware review and reproduces a verified simulated rally on HIM's real Unitree G1, you receive a $7,500 Robot grant.
Enter the Table Tennis Challenge
arena.himrobotics.com
Submit the coolest robot simulation, policy, or result video you can make.
HIM's favorite wins $2,500 and a chance to try it on the real Unitree G1.
Enter the Open Build Challenge
arena.himrobotics.com
Train a robot to play tennis with a human in the LA 2028 Olympics.
Start with ping pong and ladder up from there.
Sports are a clean arena for building primitives that compound into economically useful skills.
Chess with DeepBlue. Go with AlphaGo. Sports and our robot, Adam.
Previous sports skills we've worked on include dancing and boxing.
View GitHub.
Apply for Robot grant 4: Tennis
Other grants coming soon.
Interested in another sport? You don't need an official challenge to build. Upload your sports-robotics policy, simulator, or both on HIM Arena, or tell us what you'd like to build.
Robot Grant gives you grant funding, robots, mentorship, and a public stage.
You teach robots new skills & get 1-1 access to a robot (shipped to you).
We reward rapid iteration and pushing hardware to the edge.
All skills ship as open-source (MIT).
Want to commercialize later? We can help.
We are excited about a future where humans and robots play sports together. Our first challenges are pointed towards this mission.
Builders receive:
This varies skill by skill.
Any! Depends on the grant. We typically work with Unitrees, Boosters, Universal Robots, I2RT. If you'd like to request a specific robot that's possible too.
Nope. We ship all equipment to you.
You get another one. Robotics loves Murphy's Law.
No. Stanford is the first campus because that is where our initial collaboration began. Over time, Robot Grant will expand to other schools, independent builders, and small teams.
No. Our grants are for teaching robots ambitious new skills.
If you would like to turn your skill into a full-time project or company down the line, we can talk about that later.
No. Robot Grant is explicitly not that. We care about craft, learning, and visible progress.
Yes, of course, and we encourage it. Robot Grant is designed to support visible, open robotics progress. We want to help provide a platform for your work, whatever your ultimate goal may be.
Yes. All Robot Grant work is open sourced under MIT license. You can commercialize it independently if you want. Or we can help you down the line. Up to you.
Projects are evaluated on measurable progress. Each skill has a ladder. The goal is to climb the ladder quickly and transparently.
This varies project by project. Typically $5K+.
Robot Grant is how we build at the bleeding edge of robotics and meet the best minds in the space.
This is your front row seat at a robotics research lab. Meet the people shaping the next era of robotics and benefit from their learnings.
Be the first to learn about what is actually working, and suggest challenges you'd like to see explored. In other words, what skills would you like robots to have?
If you represent a company, this is a great way to share your technology with the brightest builders in the space. We are happy to use your software / hardware when there is a natural fit.
If you would like to commercialize our research, you can. It's all open-source (MIT).
Collaborators suggest skills, attend private demos, meet exceptional builders, and suggest / sponsor challenge areas.
Very light. No more than 5 hours per year. (More if you want.) From time to time, we will send short updates on the latest Robot Grant skills, what we are learning, and where we think the next frontier challenges may be.
We may ask for your input on future skills or challenge areas, especially where you have a unique perspective. There is no expectation that you respond to everything or join on a recurring cadence.
We will also host occasional collaborator events and private demos.
For example, once the ping pong skill is live, collaborators may be among the first people invited to play against Adam in San Francisco.
We'd love your input on new skills. Palladium covers all expenses and operational logistics. You are more than welcome to contribute and commercialize any skills independently, as all of our contributions are open-source (MIT).
Interested? Build with us.
$1M in grants available