An open-source robot provides source code for important parts of its control, perception, or application stack. Some projects also publish electronics, mechanical drawings, bills of materials, and assembly instructions, allowing the community to reproduce or modify more of the physical platform.
Open availability can lower experimentation costs and improve auditability, but it does not guarantee safety, support, or complete openness. Users should check licenses, missing proprietary components, update practices, hardware tolerances, and whether the published design matches shipped devices.
ELI5
An open-source robot publishes reusable software and often hardware design information under stated licenses. People can inspect, reproduce or modify the parts that are genuinely included.
For example, a project may share its control code, circuit diagrams and mechanical drawings so a laboratory can build a variant. Users should check whether proprietary sensors or missing files prevent the shipped robot from being fully reproducible.
What parts of an open-source robot may be published?
Projects may publish control software, model integrations, electronics designs, mechanical files, bills of materials, assembly instructions, and testing tools.
Is every part of an open-source robot necessarily open?
No. Sensors, firmware, models, manufacturing files, cloud services, or commercial rights may remain proprietary or use different licenses.
