Viam Robot Hackathon — Fine Motor Skills
Won the Fine Motor Skills category at Viam's 2026 Robot Hackathon, building a robot arcade that lets anyone play Jenga against a robot arm remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Demo Video
Overview
Viam's 2026 Robot Hackathon challenged teams to build a robot demo around a fine motor skills task. Our team built a robot arcade around a classic dexterity game — Jenga — where the robot arm plays against a remote player.
Software Architecture
The arm runs on the Viam platform, which handles the low-level robot control and exposes the arm remotely so a player anywhere in the world can trigger a move over the internet. Vision and control logic identify which block to extract and guide the arm through the precise, low-tolerance motion needed to pull it free and stack it back on top without collapsing the tower.
Gallery
Results & Achievements
The system won the Fine Motor Skills category, judged live at Viam's office in front of the other hackathon teams.
- Won the Fine Motor Skills category at Viam's 2026 Robot Hackathon.
- Built a robot arm system capable of extracting and replacing Jenga blocks without toppling the tower.
- Made the demo remotely playable, letting anyone challenge the robot to a game of Jenga from anywhere in the world.