The hard parts of robotics are supposed to be perception, planning, and control. So why does so much of the day go to everything that comes before them?
The hidden setup tax in every robotics simulation project
Ask anyone what's hard about robotics and you'll get the same list: perception, planning, control, navigation. The genuinely interesting problems.
If you track where your hours actually go, though, a strange thing shows up. A big chunk of the day disappears before you reach any of that. You're not solving hard problems yet. You're just getting to the starting line: wiring up a workspace, writing description files, stitching together launch files, and coaxing a simulator into opening without errors.
It's the unglamorous tax on every project, and most of us have quietly accepted it as the cost of doing business.
Building a differential drive robot simulation in ROS 2 and Gazebo from scratch
A diff drive base, a LiDAR, and Gazebo, set up from one prompt instead of an afternoon of boilerplate.
A few days ago I wanted a simple mobile robot simulation. Nothing exotic:
- a differential drive base (two driven wheels, the classic mobile-robot setup),
- a LiDAR for sensing,
- running in Gazebo.
This is the kind of thing that should be straightforward. In practice it's an afternoon of boilerplate before the robot so much as twitches.
So instead of wiring it up by hand, I wanted to see how far Drift could get from a single prompt. To make it a fair test, I stripped the workspace down to nothing. No packages, no URDF, no launch files. A blank slate.
Then I typed one line:
"Create a mobile simulation from scratch."
From XACRO to URDF: how the robot description gets generated in ROS 2
What the tool wrote first, and what XACRO and URDF actually do for your robot.
- It checked the workspace first: The opening move was sensible: it looked at the current directory to understand what it was working with.
- It generated a XACRO file for the robot's dimensions: XACRO is the macro-based format that expands into a URDF, the file that tells the rest of the ROS 2 stack what your robot physically is: its links, joints, and geometry. Writing this by hand is one of the slower parts of standing up any new robot.
- The package layout came out organized: The packages, description, and launch pieces sat roughly where you'd expect them instead of landing in one messy folder.
- A running simulation in a few minutes: An empty workspace had become a running mobile robot simulation in Gazebo.
What one-prompt simulation setup means for robotics engineers
The real win is where your starting line sits. File generation is the smaller part of the story.
A running robot in a running simulator is exactly where I'd normally want to start working. The robot exists. The world is loaded. The plumbing is done. That's the point where the real robotics begins, and I got there without spending the first half of my day connecting things together.
What changed is where the starting line sits. If you spin up simulation environments constantly, that setup time isn't a one-off cost. You pay it again on every project. Getting it back means more of your day goes into the work that actually moves a project forward.
Try building a mobile robot simulation from a single prompt
If setup time is eating into your robotics work, that's the gap this is built to close. Start from an empty workspace, describe what you want, and see how close you get to a running simulation before you touch a single config file.
Watch the full run in the video above, and tell me what you'd point a single prompt at next.
FAQ
Can you set up a ROS 2 robot simulation from a single prompt?
Yes. In this walkthrough, the prompt "Create a mobile simulation from scratch" produced the packages, robot description, and launch setup for a running mobile robot simulation, starting from an empty workspace.
What is a differential drive robot simulation?
A differential drive robot moves using two independently driven wheels, steering by turning them at different speeds. Simulating one in Gazebo lets you test movement and sensors like LiDAR before deploying to hardware.
What is the difference between XACRO and URDF?
URDF is the XML file that describes a robot's links, joints, and geometry. XACRO is a macro language that expands into a URDF, letting you reuse and parameterize parts instead of writing repetitive XML by hand.
How long does it take to set up a mobile robot simulation in ROS 2 and Gazebo?
Done manually it's often an afternoon of boilerplate. In this walkthrough the working simulation came together in a few minutes from a single prompt.
What is Drift?
Drift is the AI tool used in this walkthrough. Given a prompt, it generates the workspace structure, robot description, and launch files needed for a working ROS 2 simulation.
