What a camera misses
Watch someone tighten a knot and you can follow the movement of their hands. It is harder to see when they change their grip or how much tension they apply. [1][3]
Those details matter when the job calls for care around a delicate object. [1][3]
Preload builds tools that capture those details while people demonstrate a task. The team records first-person video, contact at the hand and muscle activity together so researchers can study what happened at each moment. [1][2]
Recording the grip alongside the movement
Preload’s capture setup pairs a head-mounted camera with a tactile glove and a forearm band. The camera records the demonstrator’s view. [1][2]
The glove measures contact and pressure. The band picks up electrical activity in the muscles. [1][2]
Synchronizing those streams lets a robotics team match a visible movement to the contact and muscle signals recorded at the same time. The same approach can capture demonstrations of assembly, tool use and handling delicate objects. [1][3]
What a suturing demonstration could teach
Suturing and knot tying are early research applications. A researcher recording a demonstration could follow how someone moves an instrument and when they change tension while handling tissue. [3]
Preload is exploring whether those recordings could help researchers compare a trainee’s technique with an experienced surgeon’s and give more specific feedback. [3]
The team also wants to use the data to teach robots the movements and force control involved. That work is in early validation. [3]
From biosignals to robot training
Leo Li, Surya Pandiaraju and Runming (Tony) Wang founded Preload in 2026 and joined Y Combinator’s Fall 2026 batch. The team brings experience in computational neuroscience, biomedical engineering and neural interfaces from Caltech, Johns Hopkins and neurotechnology companies. [2]
Preload is building around the full path from recording a human task to training and evaluating a robot. It works on that problem for robotics companies, AI labs and industrial teams. [1][2]
Where Preload ranks
A ranked comparison is not yet available for Preload.
The bigger picture
A demonstration can teach a robot where a person moved their hand. Preload wants the same recording to show what happened when the hand made contact. [1][3]
Written by SOTA2 from Preload’s public materials and information its founders provided.
Sources
- Preload · Capture hardware and robotics applications
- Y Combinator · Preload, team and product
- Preload founder input · Early surgical research and demonstration use case