# Robots courses

> **PAACADEMY provides online courses on the open-source Robots plugin for Grasshopper, teaching designers how to program multi-brand industrial robot arms directly from parametric geometries.**

Robots is an open-source Grasshopper plugin for programming industrial robotic arms from the parametric design environment. Unlike robot-manufacturer-specific plugins (such as KUKA|prc which is strictly for KUKA arms), Robots supports multiple robot brands and models, providing a unified Grasshopper interface for generating robot programs compatible with KUKA, ABB, UR (Universal Robots), Staubli, and other industrial hardware.

At PAACADEMY, the Robots plugin is utilized in fabrication courses like _Clay 3D-Printing: Beyond Digital Design_ by Edurne Morales, emphasizing its versatility in mixed-hardware laboratory environments:

- **Multi-Brand Flexibility:** Learning a single Grasshopper interface that can output code for different robot brands without requiring proprietary software.
- **Kinematic Simulation:** Previewing the robotic arm's movement in the Rhino viewport to test for reachability and avoid physical collisions.
- **Custom Fabrication:** Driving complex end-effectors for processes like clay extrusion, giving designers total control over layer heights, speed and orientation.

## At a glance

- Software hub: Robots
- Courses listed: 3
- Canonical: https://paacademy.com/software/robots

## Courses

- [Clay 3D-Printing: Beyond Digital Design](https://paacademy.com/course/clay-3d-printing-beyond-digital-design)
- [Robotic Fabrication for Irregular Geometry](https://paacademy.com/course/robotic-fabrication-for-irregular-geometry)
- [Robotic Fabrication Simulation](https://paacademy.com/course/robotic-fabrication-simulation)

## FAQ

### What is the Robots plugin for Grasshopper and which robots does it support?

Robots is an open-source Grasshopper plugin for programming industrial robotic arms from the parametric design environment. It supports multiple robot brands including KUKA, ABB, Universal Robots and Staubli, providing a unified Grasshopper interface for multi-brand robot programming. At PAACADEMY, it is taught in _Clay 3D-Printing: Beyond Digital Design_ by Edurne Morales for robotic clay extrusion toolpath programming.

### What does Clay 3D-Printing: Beyond Digital Design cover at PAACADEMY?

_Clay 3D-Printing: Beyond Digital Design_ by Edurne Morales is an 8-hour intermediate course covering: material behavior in digital fabrication and clay 3D printing, including rheological properties and print speed decisions; designing and modeling architectural elements in Rhino 8; and developing parametric systems in Grasshopper where the Robots plugin translates geometry into robot-executable clay extrusion toolpath programs.

### How does the Robots plugin differ from KUKA|prc for robotic fabrication in Grasshopper?

KUKA|prc is a manufacturer-specific plugin that generates KUKA Robot Language code for KUKA arms only. The Robots plugin is an open-source multi-brand solution supporting KUKA, ABB, Universal Robots, Staubli and others through a unified Grasshopper interface. For fabrication labs with mixed robot hardware or curricula requiring manufacturer-agnostic instruction, the Robots plugin provides broader hardware compatibility.