ROS 2

Install ROS 2, launch turtlesim, publish a velocity message, and understand the three primitives that underpin every ROS program. No robot required.

~20 min

Three primitives. Master them and ROS 2 becomes library lookup. Get them wrong and every ROS project feels like fighting the framework.

~14 min

A minimal node that publishes, and another that subscribes. Side-by-side Python and C++ so you can pick your language with full information.

~18 min

Topics for streams, services for request-response, actions for long-running goals. A decision tree with concrete examples and the failure modes of picking wrong.

~12 min

Launch files are the recipe that brings a whole robot stack up with one command. Here's the Python launch API, when to use conditionals vs sub-launch, and the patterns that scale past 5 nodes.

~16 min

The runtime configuration system that keeps your code portable across robots. Declare a parameter once; set it from launch, CLI, YAML, or dynamic reconfigure. Remap topics to fit any neighbor.

~13 min

Where is the camera relative to the base? Where is the base relative to the map? TF2 is the universal answer. Here's the mental model, the commands, and the bugs that eat days.

~16 min

Every ROS-based robot ships a URDF — the XML file that defines its links, joints, meshes, and inertias. Here's the minimal mental model and the Xacro patterns that keep big URDFs sane.

~18 min

Every Nav2 stack and MoveIt arm in ROS 2 sits on top of ros2_control. It's the layer between your high-level controllers and the actual motors. Here's what each piece does — and why getting this right unlocks the rest of the ecosystem.

~18 min

Costmaps, planners, controllers, behavior trees, recovery — the full Nav2 stack mapped one box at a time. Configure it once and most mobile-robot navigation works out of the box.

~18 min

The motion-planning stack every ROS 2 arm runs. Setup Assistant, planning pipeline, controllers, perception. The week-of-work workflow for getting a new arm planning collision-free trajectories.

~17 min

The diagnostic toolkit that separates amateur ROS users from people who ship robots. Topic introspection, recording, replay, the rqt suite, RViz — the half-dozen tools that solve 80% of bugs.

~14 min