Applied Lab Principles

What we work on will keep changing, but how we approach it shouldn't. These are the principles that keep us practical, whatever we're building.

Serve the Problem

Everything starts with a problem, like "the robot can't close water bottles." We'll do serious research to crack it, and we publish what we learn, but the problem is what steers, not a sexy new method we're itching to try or a paper we want out of it.

Own It End-to-End

Whoever takes something on owns the whole of it: figure it out, build it, ship it, and make it work. We'd rather not hand a problem off to be "productionized" later. The people who built something are usually the best ones to see it through.

Simple When Unclear, Clever When Clear

Don't buy a Ferrari to deliver milk.

When you don't yet understand a problem, reach for the simplest thing that could work. Save the fun, novel methods for when you know what you need and they've earned their place. Methods serve the mission, not the other way around.