A team at the University of California, Berkeley has developed an affordable, open-source humanoid robot called Berkeley Humanoid Lite. Designed to lower the barrier to entry in robotics, the 3-foot-tall robot can be built in about a week using off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts, all for around ,000. All hardware, software, and training tools are freely available online.

The robot is aimed at beginners, researchers, and developers looking for a practical and customizable platform. Despite its low cost, it performs well in tests. Its 3D-printed actuators, built with cycloidal gears to increase durability, have held up under heavy use, including walking and object manipulation tasks.

To show its abilities, the team demonstrated two control systems: joystick-based teleoperation for tasks like handling a Rubik’s Cube, and reinforcement learning-based walking, trained in simulation and transferred to the robot using zero-shot policy transfer.

Berkeley Humanoid Lite’s structure is mostly 3D-printed, and its actuators use plastic parts. However, the cycloidal gear design distributes force over a wider area, giving it added strength and longevity—comparable to commercial-grade components.

High cost and complexity have kept humanoid robots out of reach for most developers. Simpler robots like drones and wheeled machines dominate the field because they’re easier and cheaper to build. This lack of accessible humanoid platforms has slowed progress and limited who can participate in the field.

The Berkeley team hopes their robot will help change that. Along with releasing all project files, they’ve built an active online community where users can collaborate, troubleshoot, and improve on the design. By making humanoid robotics more approachable, the project aims to inspire broader innovation.