Robotics

VacuumVLA: Two skills, one robot hand

Kari Jaaskelainen

27 Nov 2025 — 1 min read

Robots guided by Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models are getting good at everyday tasks — but most still grab with simple two-finger claws. That limits them on flat, slippery, or handle-less surfaces.

VacuumVLA adds a low-cost twist: a single end-effector that combines a standard gripper with a vacuum suction tool. It can switch modes on the fly or use both together, giving robots two ways to hold and move things.

Pick up flat items and wipe glass or tables
Open drawers without handles
Stabilize objects while cleaning or manipulating

Plugged into state-of-the-art VLA systems (DexVLA and Pi0), this hybrid hand unlocked tasks that regular grippers couldn’t handle—without exotic hardware.

Two skills, one hand. More reach, more tasks.

Designs and control code will be released. Read the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.21557v1

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.21557v1

Register: https://www.AiFeta.com

Robotics AI VLA Manipulation Hardware OpenSource Research Robots

Read more

Beyond URLs: Metadata That Makes LLMs Train Faster

Beyond URLs: Metadata That Makes LLMs Train Faster

Smarter LLMs, Faster—thanks to metadata What if training a large language model didn't just rely on text, but on the context around it? This study shows that adding fine-grained metadata—not just URLs—can meaningfully speed up pretraining and improve quality. * Beyond URLs: detailed quality signals (e.

Escaping the Verifier: Learning to Reason via Demonstrations

Escaping the Verifier: Learning to Reason via Demonstrations

LLMs can learn to reason—without task verifiers Many real-world problems don’t have automatic checkers to grade answers, even though we have lots of expert solutions. RARO (Relativistic Adversarial Reasoning Optimization) shows how to train reasoning skills from those examples alone. How it works: * A policy (the model) tries

VacuumVLA: A Two-in-One Robot Hand That Grips and Suctions

VacuumVLA: A Two-in-One Robot Hand That Grips and Suctions

Robots guided by Vision-Language-Action (VLA) AI are getting better at everyday tasks—but most still use simple two-finger grippers. That limits them on smooth, flat, or handleless objects. VacuumVLA is a low-cost robot hand that merges a standard two-finger gripper with a vacuum suction cup. The robot can switch between

ChatDRex: No‑Code, Conversational AI for Drug Repurposing

ChatDRex: No‑Code, Conversational AI for Drug Repurposing

Meet ChatDRex Finding new uses for approved drugs can save years and millions. But making those predictions usually takes teams of specialists and a tangle of tools. ChatDRex changes that. It’s a conversation-based, no‑code, multi‑agent system that lets clinicians and researchers ask complex bioinformatics questions in plain