robotindex WLKATA Mirobot Education Kit
A compact 6-axis desktop robot arm styled after full-size industrial arms like the ABB IRB 6700, built around stepper-motor joints and an Arduino-based controller. Sold in an "Education Kit" configuration bundling a pen holder, pneumatic and servo grippers, and in-house STEM curriculum materials. Originally crowdfunded on Kickstarter as an "open-source" arm in 2019, though the actual arm firmware is now proprietary — only its PC-side Python SDK carries a genuine open-source license.
wlkata.com/products/mirobot-education-kit →
Image: user-submitted
Specs
Weight
1.5kg~22cm tall; aluminum alloy + ABS construction
Software
WLKATA Studio + Python SDKcurrent SDK is genuinely MIT-licensed; the arm's own firmware is proprietary
Degrees of Freedom
6 axes6 rotational joints + a separate gripper open/close axis — a true 6-axis arm
Payload
250g rated / 400g maxsome resellers list 450g max — minor discrepancy across retailers
Actuators
Stepper motors + reducersopen-loop steppers on all 6 joints — no motor brand/model disclosed
Controller
Arduino 2560 (ATmega2560)motion controller only, not a standalone computer; USB/WiFi/Bluetooth/RS485
Reach
~315mm radius~630mm horizontal workspace diameter; figures vary slightly by reseller spec sheet
Repeatability
±0.2mm (claimed)manufacturer figure; no independent backlash/precision teardown found
Kit Contents
Education Kit ($1,680)arm, pen holder, servo + pneumatic grippers, calibration board, bundled curriculum
Reference Price
WLKATA's own store lists the Education Kit configuration pictured here at $1,680, matched by RobotShop and Geyer Instructional (Oz Robotics discounts it to roughly $1,613), with a Professional Kit tier adding a wireless Bluetooth teach pendant for $1,776–$1,850. Add-on modules are sold separately and can add thousands more, from an AI Vision Set ($890) up to an OpenCV Advanced Vision Suite ($4,990), so the base price alone understates full cost for many use cases.
Insights
Despite being marketed and sold as "open source" — including in current reseller listings — WLKATA's own firmware repository states outright, "Proprietary firmware. All rights reserved by WLKATA"; only the separate PC-side Python SDK genuinely carries an MIT license, not the arm's firmware or hardware design.
Firmware & Community
wlkata/WLKATA-Python-SDK-wlkatapython
WLKATA's own genuinely open-source, PC-side Python SDK for controlling Mirobot; the arm's onboard firmware itself is proprietary.
Specs compiled from WLKATA's official product and spec pages, RobotShop, Oz Robotics, and Geyer Instructional listings, WLKATA's GitHub organization (LICENSE files verified directly for both the Python SDK and the Firmware repo), and independent commentary (the0x00.dev, RenderHub). Several details are flagged as unconfirmed above: WLKATA's own founder/corporate-structure claims, the exact meaning of the base-joint "M6" sticker, whether the base Mirobot (as opposed to its MiroMAX successor) actually speaks Modbus over its RS485 connection, and current live Amazon pricing. The Open Source badge here covers WLKATA's current Python SDK only, not the arm's proprietary firmware.