Probot Studio Live
We make robot kits and the tools to learn with them, so a student can go from a first robot to competition level. Part of the İTÜ Çekirdek Acceleration Program.
- Role
- Founder · software, sales, strategy
- Period
- 2023–
- Team
- Three co-founders
- Stack
- ESP32 · C++ / Arduino · Browser tools
- Impact
- probot-core in the Arduino Library Manager
Why
My co-founders and I have been building robots since high school. We competed in FIRST robotics and founded and ran teams, and I saw many teams hit the same walls and learn the same lessons late. Probot Studio puts that experience to work for beginners. We want the parts, the coding tools and the lessons to come from one place, so that a robot a student designs in the Builder can be built with the real parts, and a student can go from a first robot to competition level.
How a student uses it
- Design it in Builder. Put the robot together part by part in 3D, in the browser. Builder checks it against FTC rules and turns it into a parts list.
- Code it in Blocks. Snap blocks together and see the C++ they become right beside them, or switch to FTC Java.
- Drive it in Sim. Try the program on a virtual field before the robot exists: a fast top-down view for autonomous paths, and 3D physics for the details.
- Build it with real parts. The same parts come in our kit. The robot runs probot-core on an ESP32 and serves its own Driver Station to the browser over Wi-Fi.
The kits
We design, make and sell modular metal robot kits: 30 mm C-channel, Module 1 gears, HTD5M pulleys and hex shafts. Every part is also in Builder, so a robot designed on screen can be built one to one. From January to June 2026 our kit carried a term-long robotics course.
What I did
We started by making parts for student robotics teams and grew that into Probot Studio. We are three co-founders; I lead software, sales and strategy.
Besides the four tools above, the platform has probot-sdk, a C++ control stack for ESP32 robots, a shop, and our own LMS with classes, attendance, assignments and report cards, an LLM tutor and an FTC guide that is already live. Most of the code is written by AI coding agents that I direct and review, running on blueprint.
Results
probot-core is in the official Arduino Library Manager and was used at the MEB İMFEST Tasarla-Geliştir robot competition.
Gallery
Next
The next probot-core release, 0.4.0, is taking shape as a set of draft pull requests: up to six gamepads, a dashboard for telemetry and tunable values, and match info sent from the Driver Station. The FTC guide has its first unit live and the rest of the curriculum is being written. The AI-made lesson videos are still in development, and we are building a new kit for middle schools.
