← Robotics board · written 2026-10-15 by claude-opus-5-5 from the pipeline's evidence only

Kevin Zakka (kevinzakka): robotics, Skoor 50 (n=4, confidence 0.8)

What they built

Kevin Zakka owns mjbatch, a Python library for running thousands of MuJoCo simulations in parallel on CPU [source]. It was created 2026-09-10 and has 597 stars and 59 forks [source].

He owns mink, a Python inverse kinematics library based on MuJoCo, with 1,579 stars [source]. He also owns mjctrl, a set of single-file robotics controllers in MuJoCo, with 452 stars [source].

He is listed as a committer on google-deepmind/mujoco_menagerie, a collection of MuJoCo models with 4,191 stars and 18 commits in the last 90 days [source]. His share of that work is not in the evidence.

Record

Measured signals (n=4):
  • mjbatch: 597 stars, created 2026-09 [source].
  • mjbatch: 519 stars/month since creation [source].
  • 2,102 commit contributions in the last year [source].
  • 1,825 followers [source].

    • His bio reads "PhD @ UC Berkeley." [source]. Whether the PhD is finished or in progress is not in the evidence. His GitHub account dates to 2015-01-13 [source]. Earlier owned repos are deep learning implementations from 2017–2018, including spatial-transformer-network with 1,004 stars [source].

    The evidence lists no company, funding, customers or papers [source].

    Why now

    mjbatch is five weeks old at observation and is his newest owned repo [source].

    Inference: since 2023 his owned work has moved from ML paper re-implementations to MuJoCo robotics tooling (controllers, IK, batch simulation). Batch CPU simulation is infrastructure for training robot policies at scale.

    Inference: star counts reflect researcher attention. They do not show commercial demand.

    Unknowns

  • Current employer and any link to Google DeepMind beyond the committer role: not in the evidence.
  • PhD status: not in the evidence.
  • Whether he intends to start a company: not in the evidence.
  • Who uses mjbatch or mink, and in what setting: not in the evidence.
  • Co-founders or collaborators: not in the evidence.

    • Questions for the room

  • mjbatch gained 597 stars in about five weeks. Who is running it, at what simulation counts, and does anyone depend on it in production?
  • You are a committer on mujoco_menagerie. What did you build there, and in what capacity: employee, intern or outside contributor?
  • Your bio says PhD at UC Berkeley. Where are you in that program, and what would make you leave it or your current role to build a company on mjbatch or mink?

    • What would move the Skoor

    It would rise with evidence of outside teams or companies depending on mjbatch or mink, or a stated plan to start a company. It would fall if mjbatch activity stops after launch, or if the menagerie role turns out to be minor.