February 2026 (Month: 2026-02): Mil2 gripper work delivered substantial enhancements to simulate and control robotic grippers with higher fidelity. Implemented keyboard-based gripper open/close control, improved collision mechanics and realism in the simulation, added a Gazebo testing model, refined fingertip collision boxes, redesigned gripper arms with friction properties, and adjusted mass, dimensions, and joints to improve object handling. Performed world-file cleanup to streamline debugging and testing workflows, enabling more consistent reproduction of results.

January 2026 monthly summary for uf-mil/mil2 focusing on delivering tangible business value through robotics gripper enhancements and improved simulation performance. Key work centered on enabling direct physics-based gripper control, updating the GripperControl plugin to handle left/right joints separately, and migrating physics updates to PreUpdate for more deterministic and efficient simulation. The commit 941c7ba83a27bd0bce35c74632489d5b3723c020 documents moving away from Gaz node publish/subscribe to direct joint movement; code is currently untested.