Today is my last day at Motio Inc. It’s been a great entry-level SE experience. The salary, the flexibility, and the culture made it really hard to leave. But after my performance review,¹ I realized that my passion wasn’t in enterprise software engineering.

I’m in love with machine learning, and I wanted to work in that area full time. However since I didn’t have a PhD or special credentials or professional ML experience, none of my many ML job applications returned with an interview.

I also knew I wanted more interactions, more excitement, and more exploration, so maybe working for an established company wasn’t gonna be the best option anyway. This led me to seriously consider doing a startup.

Actually, it was more like, I seriously considered resurrecting my dreams. From mid-2019 to mid-2020, I spent alot of time on this project I called the Limboid. The aim was to develop a

• highly reconfigurable robotics platform
• that can be used to build a humanoid robot
• that is extremely affordable, accessible, easy-to-learn, and scales to mass-production
• and can be used to reproduce itself

Initially, I assumed I’d just have to 3D print some bones, buy some servos, and, you know, clone an AGI from github. lol. It turns out robotics are harder than that. And making a low cost humanoid is like the final boss battle. The project brought me to places and forced me to learn things I never would’ve on my own: arxiv, EE, KiCAD, FreeCAD, hydraulics & pneumatics, ML, onshape, easyeda, neurosymbolic learning, and more (in mostly that order).

onshape-limboid.jpeg, easyeda-limboid.jpeg, limboid-cognitive-arch.jpeg

But sadly it didn’t care about my efforts. It drained my bank account, declared half of my room as its own, and stole my heart. I was no match for the Project. For some time, I admitted defeat. Focused more on finishing college and stuff like that. But the surging torrents on arxiv and github were too loud to ignore…

limboid-takes-over-room.jpeg, limboid-in-garage.jpeg

Which is why I’m heading back into the battlefield. I’ve already formed a team with some PhD’s for a part of the AI-side of things, but I’ll need as much help as I can get ‘cause there’s a long road ahead. I’m looking for student or professional researchers and engineers with experience or enthusiasm in any relevant background: ML, data science, SE, embedded systems, DE, EE, hydraulics/pneumatics, mech. engr., etc. Also maybe experienced entrepreneurs and early-stage hard tech investors. No marketing or other non-R&D/engr roles atm. All countries http://Pilot.co supports with a US employer are welcome. We’re already collaborating across 4 countries. I have no idea how long it’ll take, but expect at least 6 months of deferred-equity-for-service. Hybrid slicing pie model. Maybe our website will be in better shape by the time you’re reading this: limboid.ai. If not, just email me at jacob.valdez@limboid.ai. Thanks!

preliminary-limboid.jpeg