Who Am I?
Hi! My name is Lucas Polodna, and I’m the sole creator of Robots Made Simple. I’m just a regular guy with a deep love for automation, robotics, and all things tech. My mind is constantly dreaming up new inventions, and my lifelong goal has always been to bring those ideas to life, and share them with the world.
Whether you’re looking to build something yourself, learn along the way, or find real-world applications you can benefit from, this is the place for you. I believe great ideas shouldn’t stay locked in someone’s head, they should be built, documented, and handed off to anyone willing to run with them.
Come join me on this journey. Let’s make some awesome stuff together!
Why did I make Robots Made Simple?
Robotics and automation have always felt like a world unto themselves: deep, sprawling, and endlessly fascinating. But that depth comes with a cost, and not just financially. The learning curve is steep, the resources are scattered, and the bleeding-edge tools often carry bleeding-edge price tags to match.
I know there’s a community of creators, makers, and inventors out there who share that same curiosity. People who love to learn, experiment, and push the boundaries of what they can build. They just need the right resources to do it.
Robots Made Simple exists for them. It’s a hub for exploration, learning, and getting capable tools into the hands of the people who are actually out there building things.
Why did I choose to go open-source
The biggest barriers in robotics aren’t technical, they’re access. Access to designs, to software, to documentation that actually explains what’s going on. Too much knowledge in this space sits behind paywalls, inside corporate R&D labs, or locked up in the heads of people who never got around to sharing it.
Open-source I believe is the antidote to that. By freely sharing our designs, software, tools, documentation, and instructions, we can collectively lower the barrier to entry for everyone, from the curious beginner to the experienced builder looking for a smarter starting point.
But this isn’t just about giving things away. It’s about building something bigger! A community that learns together, builds together, and makes each other better. Where ones breakthrough can become everyone’s breakthrough. Where a question asked by a beginner gets answered by someone who was asking the same thing two years ago.
That’s the community Robots Made Simple is here to grow. Built by you, for you.
What Does “Open-Source” Mean?
At Robots Made Simple, open-source means no strings attached. Every design, piece of code, and document we publish is yours to use, to build, modify, sell, learn from, or improve upon however you see fit, personally or commercially.
All code is released under the MIT License, one of the most permissive open-source licenses out there. In plain English: take it, use it, ship it. Just don’t hold us liable.
The mechanical designs and documentation follow the same spirit: open, accessible, and free to build on.
We only ask one thing. If you improve it, consider sharing it back. That’s how this community grows!
How Can the Community Help?
Robots Made Simple is currently a one-person operation. Every project you see here, the mechanical design, the code, the documentation, the videos, the support, is researched, built, filmed, written, and funded by me, alone. It’s a labor of love, but it’s still labor!
Here’s how you can make a real difference:
Share the work. The single biggest thing you can do is put these projects in front of more people. Post it, link it, mention it. Every share reaches someone who might be exactly who this community was built for.
Help others build. If you’ve built one of these projects, pay it forward. Answer questions, post your build, share what tripped you up. Your experience is genuinely valuable to the person just starting out.
Improve what’s here. Spot something in the docs that’s unclear? Have a cleaner way to write a function or cut a part? Contributions of any size, from big redesigns or fixing a single typo makes the whole thing just that much better for everyone else.
Fund future projects. New projects cost real money in parts, tools, and time. If you’ve gotten value from this work and you’re in a position to give something back, it goes directly into building the next thing.
No pressure, no obligation. Just know that however you choose to show up, building, sharing, teaching, or contributing, it matters!