Insight · 2026-10-30
The purchase order takes a week. The platform stays for years. These are the questions that determine whether it is still useful in year three.
Research platforms are bought by committees and used by students. That gap explains most of the disappointment. Before the purchase order, get written answers to these nine questions.
1. What exactly does the SDK expose? Joint-level control, sensor streams, or only pre-built behaviours? Ask for the documentation, not a demo.
2. Which ROS version, and is it maintained? A platform stuck on an unsupported distribution becomes a museum piece.
3. Can two students work on it at once? Simulation licences, spare batteries and a second development seat often matter more than an extra degree of freedom.
4. Who repairs a joint or a sensor, and how long does it take? Ask for the parts path in writing, including expected lead time for the most commonly replaced modules.
5. What is the consumable list? Batteries, pads, tendons, filters — anything that wears out on a schedule.
6. Is the platform still in production? If it is being phased out, get the support commitment for the period your grant runs.
7. Who trains the first cohort? A two-day vendor session is not a curriculum. Someone on your staff needs to own the platform.
8. Is there a community or published work using this platform? Papers, theses and shared code are the real documentation.
9. What does it need from your building? Floor flatness, ceiling height, power, network and a safety perimeter. A humanoid that walks needs space that your room may not have.
Buy the platform together with a support path: spares, training, and a named service contact. Paid in stages, with acceptance criteria tied to the questions above, a platform purchase becomes a research programme instead of a capital expense.
Tell us about your site — we will tell you honestly whether this is a robot project.