Adam Allevato

Welcome, humans and robots.
adam (at) allevato (dot) me
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Career

Amazon Frontier AI And Robotics (FAR)

2026-Present

I'm building large-scale datasets for training robot learning models.

What I learned building WhyTorch October 2025 Writing

WhyTorch

September 2025

An interactive learning tool that visually explains how PyTorch functions work. The site breaks down commonly confusing operations like torch.gather with step-by-step visualizations showing how inputs map to outputs.

Projects WhyTorch visualization of torch.gather
Thoughts on Low Cost Robots June 2025 Writing

Cherry Live Light

2024

A macOS app that syncs smart lights with your DAW to show recording status. Detects playback, arm, record, and quick punch events, and sets hue, saturation, and brightness for any number of Philips Hue bulbs. Works with Logic, Ableton, REAPER, Pro Tools, and any MIDI-capable DAW.

Projects Cherry Live Light app screenshot
Moxi hospital delivery robot
Career

Autonomy for Indoor Deliveries

2018, 2021-2026

I was an early engineer at Diligent Robotics, where I built out many AI and perception systems from the ground up. My work enabled the Moxi delivery robot to autonomously navigate hospitals, open doors, and ride hundreds of thousands of elevators. I led the ML team, developed AI strategy, and presented to industry, investors, and press. I also created Moxi's signature "meep" sounds along with many other systems across the robot.

Pensa autonomous store scanning drone
Career

Accurate Flying Inside Retail Stores

2020-2021

I redesigned the core behavior state machine for Pensa's autonomous store scanning drone, Daisy, making it more robust and easier to extend. I then built on this to prove out the first fully-autonomous multi-flight schedule for the drone. I also developed a custom fiducial marker-based visual localization system for precise indoor navigation in GPS-denied retail settings. The result was improved scan consistency, reduced drift, and better shelf coverage.

Right Side Up

2019

A tile-flipping puzzle game for iOS and Android. Flip all the tiles on the board so they're right side up using only a few specific tile patterns. 150 free levels plus 10 new ones daily, with billions of possible variations.

Projects Right Side Up puzzle game screenshot
Home Robotics are Out of Our Reach, and Here's Why July 2018 Writing 10 Useful ROS1 Tools February 2018 Writing Wrangling ROS Terminals January 2018 Writing

Stoalert

2018-2022

A notification service for the competitive speech and debate community. Monitored Stoa USA's calendars every 15 minutes and alerted subscribers to tournament updates, so they didn't have to check manually. Shut down in 2022 after Stoa consolidated their event info.

Projects Stoalert how it works diagram
Robot working inside nuclear glovebox
Career

Robots in Nuclear Gloveboxes

2016-2018

Working with the Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group and Los Alamos National Laboratory, we deployed robots inside nuclear gloveboxes for mixed-waste sorting and manufacturing tasks. Much of the code is available on the lab's GitHub, which I helped run.

How Many Unique AR Tags Exist? A Formula January 2016 Writing
Sim-to-real deep learning research
Career

Sim-to-Real Deep Learning

2016-2020

My PhD research at The University of Texas at Austin trained robot task models using simulations and deep learning, with a goal of better human-robot interaction.

Detecting lines and circles with the Hough Transform May 2015 Writing
Robot arm with 3D computer vision
Career

3D Computer Vision for Robots

2014-2017

In my masters' thesis work, I developed a 3D pose estimation library based on Robot Operating System (ROS). It's great for robotic sorting, remote inspection, and small part picking. We've since used the code in the 2015 Amazon Picking Challenge and other human-robot interaction studies.

"Not Last Place": A War Story September 2014 Writing