A venture profile grounded in public work
OpenDroids appears in Persist’s portfolio. Its public resource library offers a useful way to understand the practical questions behind a robotics pilot. A pilot needs a clear task, a suitable environment, a record of interventions, and an agreed way to judge the result.
This profile uses publicly available guides as a worked learning path. It is not a customer case study and does not claim deployed performance, a funding outcome, or a measured financial return. Those claims would require project-specific evidence.
Begin with the environment
The AMR site survey checklist starts the discussion with the place where the robot would operate. Record the route, task boundaries, people nearby, physical constraints, and points at which a human may need to intervene. Do this before treating a demonstration video as proof that the same system will work at your site.
A helpful survey distinguishes fixed constraints from things a team can change. A narrow doorway, a busy service period, and a movable cart are different kinds of problem. The result should be a shared description of the environment and the task to test, rather than a vague expectation of automation.
Agree on acceptance before the pilot
Use the robot pilot acceptance test template to define an observable task and decide what counts as completion. Set the conditions, number of observed attempts, exception categories, and review owner in advance. Record incomplete runs as well as successful ones.
Keep an intervention log. If a person resets the system, clears the route, or finishes part of the task, that work belongs in the record. Otherwise, two teams can report the same completion count while describing very different levels of operational independence.
Turn observations into the next decision
| Pilot artifact | The question it helps answer |
|---|---|
| Site survey | Where could this task realistically be tested? |
| Acceptance test | What would a successful observed run mean? |
| Intervention log | How much help did the system need, and why? |
| Cost worksheet | Which costs must be understood before comparing options? |
The robot total-cost-of-ownership guide adds an economic lens. Use actual costs where available and mark assumptions clearly. A pilot can inform a decision even when the right decision is to change the task or pause deployment.
For founders, the transferable lesson is to make a product claim testable. Pick a bounded job, document the environment, agree on evidence, and retain the exceptions. Apply the same approach to your own project using Persist’s founder application checklist.
Put the guide to work
Practical ways to prepare for building a company: choose a role, assemble evidence, and turn a promising product into a testable customer problem.
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