An open metaverse for anything you can automate
MetaTwinMaker is an open platform for digital twins of physical things, and the metaverse they live in. A robot vacuum, a self-driving car, a chicken coop, a beehive, the sprinklers on your lawn: if sensors can read it and rules can run it, its twin tracks every variable and shows you every decision. Run a season of your rules on the twin, judge them by what they produce (more eggs, more honey, a greener lawn), then trust them with the real thing.
Twin anything
Any process with something to measure and a decision to make can have a twin: a machine on a line, or a hive in the garden. Some of these you can play with today; the rest are on the drawing board, and we'd love your help building them.
Try it below
Outcome More eggs, every hen home
Daylight, hens on the roost, the temperature outside. The door closes at dusk, but never on a hen that's still out.
Drawing board
Outcome More honey, fewer swarms lost
Weigh the hive, listen to the hum, feel the brood warmth. A sudden drop in weight means a swarm, and the twin tells you before the neighbours do.
Drawing board
Outcome A greener lawn on less water
Soil moisture, rain forecast, the sun on each zone. Water only what's thirsty, and see why it skipped Tuesday.
Drawing board
Outcome Clean floors, nobody stuck under the sofa
The vacuum, the mop, the mower, the window-washer. Their twins learn where the sofa is before the real ones find out the hard way.
Drawing board
Outcome Every chore done, no collisions
A crew of house bots, one job each. Choreograph them in the twin so the mop never chases the vacuum into the same doorway.
Drawing board
Outcome Safe miles
Drive a thousand laps before breakfast. Throw rain, potholes and a runaway football at the twin, not at the car.
Drawing board
Outcome Parcels landed, batteries home
Plan the route, rehearse the landing in a crosswind, and crash a few times for free.
Live now
Outcome Every part in the tray
Six joints and a moving belt. Teach the pick on the twin, then watch every part land in the tray.
Live now
Outcome More good parts, less downtime
Servo axes, presses, mills, lathes, cranes and a whole packaging line, running today in the motion lab.
What's in a twin
A 3D model of the real thing with every part that matters named: the joints that move, the door that shuts, the valve that opens.
Every sensor is a variable you can see: position, light, weight, moisture, temperature. Nothing is decided on a number you can't look at.
Real physics, and the weird stuff too: jams, drift, dead sensors, a hen that won't come in. The twin is only useful if it surprises you the way the real thing does.
Rules you can see
Automation is only fun when you trust it. In the metaverse, the rules are written down where you can read them, and every decision comes with the rule that made it and the numbers it was made on. Try it on a chicken coop: change the evening, watch the twin decide, and walk around it in 3D.
Lights outWaiting
When daylight is under 20 lux and all 6 hens are on the roost, then close the door.
Now: daylight 120 lux is not under 20.
Wait for stragglersWaiting
When daylight is under 20 lux and a hen is still outside, then keep the door open and send an alert.
Now: daylight 120 lux is not under 20.
Good morningFiring
When daylight is over 50 lux, then open the door.
Now: daylight 120 lux is over 50.
Warm roostWaiting
When it is under 2 °C outside (off again over 5 °C), then switch the heat lamp on.
Now: 8 °C is over 5.
DoorOpen
Heat lampOff
No alerts.
{
"schema": "metatwinmaker.coop.decision/1",
"source": "twin",
"inputs": {
"lux": 120,
"hens": 2,
"tempC": 8
},
"function": "coop.rules@1",
"output": {
"door": "open",
"lamp": false,
"alerts": []
},
"fired": [
"good-morning"
]
}Outcomes
Closing a door at dusk is an action; a full egg basket and every hen home safe is the outcome. A twin runs a whole season of your rules before you live it, on the same weather as doing it the old way, so you can judge the rules by what they produce.
A timer and a calendar The twin's rules
Season 1
+48 eggs collected (+21%)
The door waits for stragglers and shuts at dusk, the lamp keeps the roost off the cold, so the hens keep laying and the fox finds nobody outside.
Eggs collected
225 273Hens home at the end
5 of 6 6 of 6Nights shut outside fewer is better
10 0Cold nights on the roost fewer is better
29 0Heat lamp hours the price of the rules
0 h 924 h+18.3 kg honey harvested (+68%)
The hive's weight and hum flag swarm preparations in time to split it, its weight says when to add the next box, and low stores say when to feed.
Honey harvested
26.8 kg 45.1 kgSwarms lost fewer is better
2 0Colony strength at the end
90% 99%An illustrative model with plausible numbers, not a measured result: six hens and one hive, the same weather and the same luck for both runs, so the rules are the only difference. A twin's job is to run this on your own coop's and hive's numbers.
Same shape, both worlds
A twin is an emulation: it runs the same function on the same inputs as the real controller, and writes its answer as the same JSON. Lay the two records side by side and the real world can be checked against the twin, field by field.
The twin and the real coop get the same inputs and run the same rules.
Their outputs are compared field by field. A mismatch is a finding: a stuck door, a drifting sensor, a rule that changed.
Every record has the same shape, so a classifier trained on the twin's records reads the real ones without translation, and quickly puts a probability on each outcome.
source: "twin"{
"schema": "metatwinmaker.coop.decision/1",
"source": "twin",
"inputs": {
"lux": 12,
"hens": 6,
"tempC": 1
},
"function": "coop.rules@1",
"output": {
"door": "closed",
"lamp": true,
"alerts": []
},
"fired": [
"lights-out",
"warm-roost"
]
}source: "coop-01"{
"schema": "metatwinmaker.coop.decision/1",
"source": "coop-01",
"inputs": {
"lux": 12,
"hens": 6,
"tempC": 1
},
"function": "coop.rules@1",
"output": {
"door": "open",
"lamp": true,
"alerts": []
},
"fired": [
"lights-out",
"warm-roost"
]
}5 of 6 fields match
inputs.luxinputs.hensinputs.tempCfunctionoutput.doortwin closed, coop openoutput.lampSame inputs, same function, different output: the twin closed the door and the coop's didn't. That is a finding, not a mystery. Check the door motor.
From the mismatched record, a classifier ranks the causes by probability, so you check the likeliest first. The same goes for outcomes still to come: a swarm this week, a hen that won't come in, a bearing on its way out.
Example output, to show the shape of the answer.
How it works
That's the whole game, and the twin is what makes the risky parts cheap. Nothing catches fire, no hen gets locked out, and the undo button always works.
Model the thing and name the parts that move, open, shut or switch.
Give it the variables its real sensors read: light, weight, moisture, position.
Write the rules in plain terms, or program it the way you'd program the real one.
A cold snap, a stuck valve, a hen who stays out late. Go on, we'll wait.
Judge the rules by what they produce, and check the real thing against the twin.
An open platform
Twins are useful for far more than one thing. Here's what people can do with them, and what we're building the platform for.
Labs on machines you could never fit in a classroom, with progress and quizzes.
Try your code on the twin before it ever meets the hardware.
Challenges, races and puzzles where the physics is real and the stakes aren't.
Lay out a robot fleet or a factory floor and watch it run before you buy a thing.
Mirror the real coop, hive or line: every reading on its twin, every decision in its log.
Reproduce a fault on the twin of the thing that has it, then try the fix.
Every world publishes what it holds at /twins.json: each twin's 3D model
and joints, its camera views, its troubleshooting scenarios and its tags, described
by a JSON schema and readable from anywhere.
Tags come from a shared vocabulary, so twins from different worlds can be found and grouped together. This page is built from those catalogs, and your app can be too.
GET https://motion.metatwinmaker.com/twins.json
{
"site": { "name": "MotionMeta", "parent": "https://metatwinmaker.com" },
"twins": [
{
"id": "robot",
"name": "Robot cell",
"model": { "url": ".../models/robot.glb", "joints": […] },
"scenarios": […],
"classification": { "category": "robotics", … }
},
…
]
}Worlds
A world is a corner of the metaverse on its own subdomain, with the physics and the twins its field needs. metatwinmaker.com ties them all together. The first one is open.
Live · Motion control
Logix integrated motion: servo axes, coordinated motion, camming and gearing, robot and CNC control, taught on machines you can run, break and fix in the browser.
Lab hall. An 18 by 12 m lab hall with every twin at its own station; visitors walk it in first person and step up to a station to use it.
Your world next?
Robot butlers, a greenhouse, an apiary, a self-driving go-kart, the model railway in
the attic. Anything with something to measure and a rule to follow can have a
world. Publish a
twins.json and its twins show up on this page.
Play now
Straight from the motion lab and running live in your browser. Pick one, drive it, then break it on purpose.
From the catalog at motion.metatwinmaker.com.
One servo axis driving a ballscrew carriage: tune it, move it, fault it and reset it.
Axes: Axis
A tilting ladle pouring copper into two indexing casting wheels, with gearbox faults to find.
Axes: Ladle tilt, Wheel A, Wheel B · 10 scenarios
An X–Y gantry running coordinated lines and arcs, with its path plotted as it goes.
Axes: X, Y
Eight movers on a loop of linear motor segments, with a switch into a machine lane and an entry merge.
Axes: Carts (eight), Switch · 7 scenarios
A six-axis arm picking parts off a moving belt into a tray, programmed as Logix coordinated motion.
Axes: J1–J6, Belt · 6 scenarios
A mobile robot carrying trays across the hall from the robot cell to the cart track, under a fleet manager.
Axes: Left and right wheels · 5 scenarios
A miniload crane storing and retrieving totes in a two-rack aisle, with mast sway to settle.
Axes: Travel, Hoist, Forks · 5 scenarios
An electric press fitting pins into housings on a six-nest index table, judged by its force–depth curve.
Axes: Press rod, Index table · 5 scenarios
A four-axis wet winder laying carbon fibre on a pressure vessel's liner, its axes cammed to the spindle.
Axes: Spindle, Carriage, Cross-feed, Payout eye, Dancer feed · 5 scenarios
An enclosed three-axis vertical mill running a part program as coordinated motion, cutting a block you can watch.
Axes: X, Y, Z, Spindle, Carousel · 5 scenarios
A two-axis CNC turning centre turning a threaded pin from bar and measuring it against its drawing.
Axes: Spindle, Z, X, Turret, Tailstock quill · 5 scenarios
A pick-and-place delta robot picking products off a moving belt by camera and packing them into trays.
Axes: J1–J3, J6, Conveyor · 6 scenarios
The lab's machines joined into one autonomous line, from the press that makes each product to the warehouse rack that stores it, in a room of its own.
Axes: Press, Cart track, Delta robot, Case packer, Mobile robot, Warehouse crane · 5 scenarios · In the packaging line room
The motion lab is open: robot arms, cranes, mills and a whole packaging line, all waiting for someone to push the wrong button.