Winner of the Most Technical Award at The Robot Rave Hackathon 2026
Demo • Features • Quick Start • Team • Architecture
On January 17th, 2026, at The Robot Rave hackathon in London, four engineers came together with one mission: make a robot dog dance to YMCA like Trump.
What started as a wild idea became a fully-featured robotics platform with real-time choreography, music synchronization, and sim-to-real transfer. We built everything from scratch in 12 hours - and won the Most Technical Competence Award.
"At Cocoa and SoTA we believe in the importance of culture for technoscientific progress... And what more human way to celebrate the culture of technological progress, optimism, and ambition than a dancing robot – the ultimate expression of the joy and hope we want to cultivate for the future."
The real Unitree Go1 performing our YMCA choreography
Building the dance in our custom choreography editor
The inspiration: Trump's iconic YMCA dance
A professional timeline editor for robot dance choreography - think Adobe Premiere, but for robot moves.
- Waveform visualization synced to music
- Drag & drop move markers on timeline
- Zoom in/out for precise timing (1000%+ zoom)
- Debug mode: flag timestamps while music plays
- Save/Load choreography as JSON
- Real-time playback with robot execution
- Undo/Redo support
Complete control panel for the Unitree Go1 robot.
- All robot modes (Stand, Walk, Dance, etc.)
- Custom dance sequences (Wave, Nod, Shake, Bounce, Groove, Twist, Wiggle, Hip Shake)
- Body pose controls (Look Up/Down, Lean, Twist, Squat, Extend)
- LED color control
- Sequence recording & playback
- Real-time action logging with timing stats
Beat detection and music analysis for automatic choreography generation.
- Beat detection using Librosa
- YMCA song analysis (129 BPM)
- Move timing suggestions based on beats
- Visual beat representation
Test choreographies in simulation before deploying to real hardware.
- Full physics simulation with MuJoCo
- Keyboard control for testing
- Sim-to-real transfer
- Same commands work in sim and on real robot
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/dawodx/YMCA.git
cd YMCA
# Run setup (creates venv + installs dependencies)
./setup.sh
# Activate environment
source .venv/bin/activate
# Run the tools:
python mo_simulation/go1_dashboard.py # Control Dashboard (port 8890)
python mo_simulation/go1_choreographer.py # Choreography Editor (port 8894)
# Run MuJoCo simulation
.venv/bin/mjpython mo_simulation/go1_sim_server.py# Network setup for Unitree Go1:
# 1. Connect Go1 via Ethernet
# 2. Set your IP to: 192.168.123.xxx
# 3. Go1 IP is: 192.168.123.161
# Then use the dashboard to connect and control
python mo_simulation/go1_dashboard.py
| Name | Role | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mo Dawod | Simulation & Control | linkedin.com/in/dawod | |
| Alex Daniel | Music Analysis | linkedin.com/in/a-daniel | |
| Pawit Kochakarn | Dance Choreography | linkedin.com/in/pawit-kochakarn | |
| Andrew Walsh | Computer Vision | linkedin.com/in/andrewwalsh-tech |
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CHOREOGRAPHY EDITOR │
│ Timeline • Waveform • Drag & Drop • Save/Load • Playback │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
│
┌───────────────────┼───────────────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐
│ MUSIC ANALYSIS │ │ CONTROL DASHBOARD│ │ SIMULATION │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ • Beat detect │ │ • Robot modes │ │ • MuJoCo sim │
│ • BPM analysis │ │ • Dance moves │ │ • Keyboard │
│ • Librosa │ │ • LED control │ │ • Sim server │
└────────┬────────┘ └────────┬─────────┘ └────────┬────────┘
│ │ │
└───────────────────┼────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│ UNITREE GO1 │
│ Real Robot │
│ │
│ • go1pylib SDK │
│ • MQTT commands │
│ • Real-time pose │
└─────────────────────┘
YMCA/
├── mo_simulation/ # Core simulation and control
│ ├── go1_choreographer.py # Timeline choreography editor
│ ├── go1_dashboard.py # Robot control dashboard
│ ├── go1_sim_server.py # MuJoCo simulation server
│ ├── go1_commands.py # Shared command definitions
│ ├── go1_pose_builder.py # Custom pose creator
│ ├── go1_param_editor.py # Parameter tuning
│ └── choreography/ # Saved choreography files
├── alex_music/ # Music analysis
│ ├── beat_visualizer.py # Beat visualization
│ ├── rhythm_parser.py # Rhythm detection
│ └── song_parser.py # Song analysis
├── pawit_control/ # Dance choreography
│ └── dance_mujoco.py # MuJoCo dance integration
├── andrew_vision/ # Computer vision
│ └── README.md # Vision pipeline docs
├── shared/ # Shared utilities
│ └── config.py # Configuration
├── models/ # Robot models
│ └── unitree_go1/ # Go1 MJCF model
├── docs/media/ # Images and demos
├── setup.sh # Setup script
└── requirements.txt # Dependencies
| Tool | Port | Command |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | 8890 | python mo_simulation/go1_dashboard.py |
| Sim Server | 8891 | mjpython mo_simulation/go1_sim_server.py |
| Pose Builder | 8892 | python mo_simulation/go1_pose_builder.py |
| Param Editor | 8893 | python mo_simulation/go1_param_editor.py |
| Choreographer | 8894 | python mo_simulation/go1_choreographer.py |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| W/S | Body height up/down |
| Arrow Keys | Lean forward/back/left/right |
| A/D | Yaw left/right |
| 1/2/3/4 | YMCA poses |
| Space | Reset to stand |
| Esc | Quit |
The Robot Rave was a hackathon-meets-performance organized by SoTA (Society for Technological Advancement) and Cocoa in London on January 17th, 2026.
Engineers, founders, and artists came together to make robots dance, culminating in a Robot Dance Competition at Maggie's, London's iconic 80s club.
- SoTA & Cocoa for organizing an incredible hackathon
- Unitree for the Go1 robot platform
- MuJoCo for the physics simulation
- The Village People for YMCA (and Trump for the dance moves)
Made with passion at The Robot Rave 2026
Let's make robots dance!
MIT License - see LICENSE for details.