Many of our manufacturing and metrology advances depend on custom precision hardware. We design long-travel, flexure-based nanopositioning stages that combine centimeter-scale range with nanometer-level precision, and we add features such as eddy-current damping to improve their dynamics. At smaller scales, we build MEMS-based instruments for measuring forces and topography at the nanoscale, including a MEMS interfacial force microscope and single-chip atomic force microscopes. With collaborators, we develop programmable mechanical metamaterials and mechanical neural networks driven by meso-scale thermal actuators. We also design precision machines for manufacturing, such as an r–θ projection micro-stereolithography system for large-area optics and ultraprecision spindles.