First test
After deploying your trained skill, run it from Manual Control with the same setup you used for recording.Reproduce the training scene
Place the robot, objects, and lighting as close as possible to the conditions you recorded in. The first test should be easy for the policy — if it fails on its own training distribution, something is wrong.
Run the skill
Select the skill in Manual Control and tap play. Watch the full execution without intervening.
Common failure modes
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Robot doesn’t move or barely moves | Too few episodes, or episodes have inconsistent starts | Record more episodes with consistent start poses |
| Arm overshoots the target | Jerky demonstrations or high variance in approach angles | Re-record smoother demonstrations; try a larger chunk size |
| Robot starts well but drifts | Not enough variation in demonstrations | Add more episodes with slight object position changes |
| Works on first run, fails on repeat | Object or robot position shifted | Record with more position variation; aim for 2–5 cm spread |
| Gripper doesn’t close at the right time | Inconsistent grasp timing across episodes | Focus on consistent timing when closing the gripper |
| Robot ignores the object entirely | Lighting or background changed significantly | Record in the current conditions, or control lighting more carefully |
How to improve a policy
Add more data
The most reliable way to improve a policy. Add 20–30 episodes that specifically cover the failure case, sync, and retrain. You don’t need to start from scratch — the new episodes are added to the existing dataset.Tune hyperparameters
If the behavior is qualitatively close but not quite right:- Chunk size controls the smoothness/reactivity tradeoff. Increase it if the robot hesitates; decrease it if the robot overshoots.
- Max steps may need increasing for larger datasets. A good heuristic: the model should see each episode hundreds of times during training.
- Learning rate — lower it (1e-5) if training seems unstable; raise it (1e-4) if the model isn’t learning fast enough.
Improve demonstration quality
Review your recorded episodes. Look for:- Episodes where you hesitated or corrected course excessively
- Episodes that are much longer or shorter than average
- Episodes where the start pose is significantly different
Scaling up
Once your policy works in the original setup, gradually introduce variation:- Move the object a few centimeters between runs
- Change the object slightly (same cup in a different color)
- Adjust lighting modestly