Armstrong Robotics

When I joined Armstrong, the company was developing a commercial kitchen dishwashing robot already deployed in two restaurants. My work focused on debugging hardware in the field and improving reliability and manufacturability of key components. The company then went through a pivot and restructuring; our new focus was on the ecosystem of training robots using Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models through the UMI methods. 

Key Contributions

• Debugged and repaired robots in the field (back of house in a restaurant) during business hours for the restaurant.

• Developed a system to track hardware failures, improving workflow between operations and the hardware team.

• Designed sheet-metal housing for vision sensors operating in harsh kitchen environments.

• Designed robotic and handheld data-collection grippers and helped define the embedded sensor architecture for new robotics platforms.

• Replaced an essential polyurethane traction pad with a molded vendor solution, reducing cost from $100 to <$3 per pad.