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MORPH

Overview​

MORPH (Modular Open-source Robotic Programming Hub) is an interdisciplinary collaboration between Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering to design educational robotics kits that include pedagogically sound educational material and parts sourced in the USA. The platform enables students to program and control robots through an accessible web interface backed by a professional-grade ROS 2 robotics stack, with automatic robot discovery on the local network. Formerly known as SMARTRobot.

Information​

  • Source Code: https://github.com/oss-slu/MORPH git
  • Client: Dr. Madi Babaiasl & SLU Launch
  • Track: Entrepreneurship
  • Current Tech Lead: Ngan Nguyen github
  • Developers:
    • Jake Bounds (capstone) github
    • Pascal Sikorski (capstone) github
  • Alumni:
    • Daniel Shown (prior tech lead) github
    • Aedan Bird (hardware)
    • Kody Cool (hardware)
  • Start Date: Aug, 2025
  • Technologies Used:
    • React, TanStack Start, TypeScript (web frontend)
    • FastAPI, Python, Socket.IO (backend server)
    • ROS 2, Foxglove WebSocket (robot middleware and visualization)
    • Zeroconf/mDNS (robot discovery)
    • Docker (deployment)
  • Type: Robotics / Web
  • License: AGPLv3

Technical Information​

Development Priorities​

  • Develop educational curriculum and learning modules
  • Add extension kit support (IMU, LiDAR, RGB-D sensors)
  • Integrate block-based programming and Jupyter notebooks for learning
  • Dockerize the full application stack
  • Set up automated testing with GitHub Actions
  • Improve robot-to-server communication and LIDAR visualization

Get Involved​

If you would like to contribute to this project, please visit our GitHub page to create your own issues or pull requests.