LeKiwi Low-Cost Mobile Robotic Arm

What it is:
LeKiwi is a low-cost mobile manipulation platform created by the SIGRobotics club at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It combines a three-wheel omnidirectional Kiwi drive base with a SO-ARM101 robotic arm and later became the mobile-base design directly reused by projects such as XLeRobot.

Hardware list and approximate costs:
One SO-ARM101 robotic arm, a three-wheel omnidirectional base, a Raspberry Pi 5, and two RGB cameras—workspace and wrist—with either a 12V lithium-battery power system or a 5V laptop power-bank system. The official BOM lists an approximate complete-system cost of $482 for the 12V version and $499 for the 5V version. The base alone, excluding the robotic arm, costs approximately $248 for the 5V version and $251.5 for the 12V version. All prices exclude 3D printing and tools.

Overview of replication steps:
1. Purchase all parts for the robotic arm, base, Raspberry Pi, cameras, and other components according to BOM.md
2. Print the base and mounting components according to 3DPrinting.md
3. Assemble the complete system according to Assembly.md
4. Follow the official LeRobot tutorial to integrate the software stack and get teleoperation working
5. Use a game controller, keyboard, or leader arm to control the mobile base and robotic arm together
6. Collect data from the workspace/wrist cameras to build a dataset for imitation learning

Getting-started advice:
For a first build, the 5V laptop power-bank version is recommended. The official documentation explicitly states that this version is easier to assemble. The 12V version is better suited to experienced builders who need greater load capacity.