By Andy Yeh
After building the MeArm, I was looking for even more affordable ways to build a robotic arm, particularly, for the school children to learn about the mathematics and engineering behind the robotic arms. Figuring out that the microcontroller controlled robotic arms can be too complex for normal classrooms, I thought about using cardboard and the Makedo tools, and finally I got some time to create one.
Using this cardboard robotic arm, young children could investigate the movement of robotic arms. The higher mathematics of robotic arm such as forward kinematics is blogged in my VRMath2 website with a virtual arm. With this cardboard one, young children could easily record the angles of the base, shoulder and elbow for the claw to move to certain positions.
Key questions for such investigation could be:
What angles can you set for the claw to get to (location)?
Is there only one way (combination of angles) for the claw to reach any location (within its range)?
Will there be more than one way to get to some locations?
What locations would have only one way to get to?
What locations could have more than one way to get to?
Which angle would you set first when moving the arm?
If the claw is to reach the (location), what angles of the base, shoulder, elbow would you predict? How?
If you are interested in making one cardboard arm like this, please feel free to contact us and inquiry further information. Or you can leave a comment below for quicker response.