Making hardware less hard at Circuit Launch
Intrinsic AI for Industry competition, UBTech lands more factory orders for Walker and Figure in trouble
Making Hardware Less Hard has been the core mission of Silicon Valley Robotics since we founded in 2010 and one of my passion projects has been trying to create an open ecosystem acceleration space for robot startups ie. affordable access to the facilities and equipment that hardware startups need. We’ve had a few different attempts and partnerships but Circuit Launch is hands down the most successful.
Circuit Launch is a hardware cowork space operating on a gym membership model. You can sign up month by month for a hot desk, dedicated desk space(s) which allow you to store quite a lot of stuff, or a lockable office for between 1 and 40 people. Being on a monthly rental allows you to go from 3 people to 10 people and back down to 6 people as needed.
Membership at one Circuit Launch gives you access to the tools, spaces and equipment at all location - subject to booking. As well as conference rooms and event spaces, Circuit Launch provides manufacturing assembly areas and equipment for prototyping and small batch manufacturing. The Oakland facility has 3 biolabs and a textiles zone, the Mountain View facility has a full machine shop with a HAAS CNC, mills and plasma cutter. Plus both locations have electronics and debugging equipment, 3D printers, laser cutters, wood and metal tools.
One of the biggest value propositions though is the power of the community. Have a technical or business question? Looking for a hire or p/t work? Need to know about local supply chain or manufacturing options? Two or three other people in the community have probably got answers. Where else are you surrounded by people just like us!
If you haven’t been to any of our events, open houses or demo days, then there are now two Circuit Launch locations, one in Oakland and the latest location in Mountain View. The San Leandro space is still on hold as property developers sort their shit out but there might soon be three or four additional Circuit Launch locations around the SF Bay Area or beyond.
Many thanks to all the great volunteers helping us put on a very rapid-fire Robot Block Party and Brazilian BBQ at Circuit Launch in Mountain View. Thanks also to the sponsors - smAiT, Intrinsic, Weights & Biases by Coreweave, SoloTech and Ultimate Fighting Bots. Plus the great community demos from roving Daleks, Gyropalm, Cerullion, Humanoid Robot Comedy, Mirror.ai, Think Circuits, Ubo, Thought Forge, ItsWare, AIBarmen, Workr Labs, Gnus.ai, Fixit Clinic, Open Robotics and apologies if I missed you. Also thanks to our hosts - Circuit Launch, Silicon Valley Robotics, OffChain Global, The Silicon Valley Podcast, Intellipro, Orbis86.
Sponsors
AI-Powered Robots in the Real-World Workforce
At smAiT, we are pioneering the future of robotics—driven by a relentless commitment to innovation and the transformative power of artificial intelligence. Our mission is to meet the evolving demands of today’s world by designing intelligent, reliable, and purpose-built robots that deliver practical, efficient solutions across diverse industries. From hospitality to businesses, our systems are engineered not just to function—but to serve with humanity, adaptability, and a real-world workforce.
Intrinsic is a software and AI robotics company at Alphabet. We believe intelligent automation will help the world reimagine what robots can do and who gets to use them.
The AI for Industry Challenge is an open competition for developers and roboticists who want to tackle some of the hardest, high-impact problems that exist in robotics and manufacturing. Win a share of $180,000 prize pool.
Brought to you by Intrinsic and Open Robotics
Weights & Biases by CoreWeave is the AI developer platform to build AI agents, applications, and models with confidence.
Solo Tech powers the future of Physical AI Inference by enabling efficiency tuned AI models in the real world. From language to vision to action models, Solo runs cutting-edge AI directly on-device. Solo specializes in delivering context aware intelligence, optimized for mission-critical tasks and tuned for the edge.
Event Partners
The Silicon Valley Podcast - Voices for Good Campaign
For the Live Podcast, we’ll be interviewing Alex Dantas, CEO of Circuit Launch for our “Giving Hope to People in Need“ #VoicesforGood campaign in partnership with Daffy and #IHeartRadio to support incredible nonprofit organizations helping so many people across the Bay Area and globally. The five organizations are:
💜 Love Never Fails | 🌍 Convoy of Hope |🎓 Five Keys Home Free |💼 Mission Hiring Hall |⚖️ Open Door Legal
Every Toy Helps, Every Donation Appreciated
In collaboration with JoeysToyDrive.org, there will be a Toy Drive onsite. Your donation of a new unwrapped toy will bring a smile to a child and if you didn’t bring a toy, there will be options to donate directly for their holiday efforts.
https://www.daffy.org/campaigns/innovation-meets-compassion-giving-hope-to-people-in-need
Humanoids in trouble?
We all know that humanoids are only one bad accident away from companies getting shut down. Figure is in trouble at the moment, with the whole industry waiting to see what will happen.
Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’ - CNBC (article includes court filing)
Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”
The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.
In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”
The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.
Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.
The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.
Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.
A Figure spokesperson said in an emailed statement that Gruendel was “terminated for poor performance,” and that his “allegations are falsehoods that Figure will thoroughly discredit in court.”
Robert Ottinger, Gruendel’s attorney, told CNBC in a statement that, “California law protects employees who report unsafe practices.”
“This case involves important and emerging issues, and may be among the first whistleblower cases related to the safety of humanoid robots,” Ottinger said. “Mr. Gruendel looks forward to the judicial process exposing the clear danger this rush to market approach presents to the public.”
UBTECH Humanoid Robot Walker S2 Begins Mass Production and Delivery, with Orders Exceeding 800 Million Yuan
UBTECH has begun mass production and delivery of the first batch of several hundred full-size industrial humanoid robots, Walker S2, which will be deployed in phases across frontline industrial applications. This milestone moves the company toward its target of delivering 500 units within the year and marks the beginning of large-scale, real-world implementation of humanoid robotics.
Since early 2025, UBTECH’s Walker series humanoid robots have accumulated orders exceeding 800 million yuan (approx. US$112 million), reinforcing the company’s leadership in global humanoid robot commercialization. Among these, a recent contract to deploy Walker S2 robots at a data collection center in Zigong, valued at 159 million yuan, ranks as the second-largest order of the year, following a record 250 million yuan order secured in September. These accomplishments reflect growing market demand and strong industry recognition of UBTECH’s product capabilities.
UBTECH collaborates with leading industry players including BYD, Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor, Geely Auto, FAW-Volkswagen Qingdao, Audi FAW, BAIC New Energy, Foxconn, and SF Express. Furthermore, with the Walker S series now entered on a wide range of automotive production lines to complete different tasks, UBTECH continues to accumulate extensive real-world data and frontline operational experience. This continuous scenario-based practice is essential for optimizing product performance and enables the development of production-line-ready, task-driven swarm intelligence.
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Robotics News
Why Is Everyone’s Robot Folding Clothes? And what does it tell us about the state of modern robot learning? - IEEE Spectrum
Kicking Robots: Humanoids and the tech-industry hype machine - Harper’s Magazine
Video: New household humanoid robot trained on 10 million chores unveiled in US - Interesting Engineering
This Home Robot Clears Tables and Loads the Dishwasher All by Itself - Wired
Why a people-focused grocer brought robots into its stores - Grocery Dive
Armstrong Robotics wants to create general purpose kitchen robots, starting with dishwashing - The Robot Report
Google DeepMind Hires Former CTO of Boston Dynamics as the Company Pushes Deeper Into Robotics - Wired
Here’s Waymo’s New Autonomous Taxi From Zeekr, Spotted In The Wild - InsideEVs
Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far - Grocery Dive
Parallax Worlds Raises $4.9M To Stress-Test Robots Before They Hit The Factory Floor - USA Today
Exclusive: Founded By Ex-Nvidia Researchers, Flexion Lands $50M To Build The ‘Brain’ for Humanoid Robots - Crunchbase News
Robotics Startup Physical Intelligence Valued at $5.6 Billion in New Funding - Bloomberg
Robotics Events
Sat Nov 22 - Robot Party and Brazilian BBQ at CL MV
Dec 1-5 - SOSV’s VC-Founder Robotics Matchup
Join the organizing team at Silicon Valley Robotics - bots&beer@svrobo.org
Nice snapshot of how “making hardware less hard” works in practice. Circuit Launch’s gym-style model and community are exactly the infrastructure embodied AI needs, and the contrast between UBTECH’s disciplined rollout and Figure’s safety troubles is a powerful reminder that in humanoids, scaling without a safety-first culture is a liability, not an advantage.
Brilliant, the gym membership model for hardware is such a smart idea, truely making tangible innovation accessible and crucial for transforming theoretical AI into real-world applications.