Robotic Arm

Robotic arms are very important for many industries. For example, the Apple's recycle robot Liam is a small robotic arm that can recycle iPhone parts, and the big, huge Iceman and Wolverine making Model X/3 cars in the Tesla factory.  These days, robotic arms have become common maker projects and can be easily/easier built with 3D printing and microcontrollers with servo motors. A lot of learning in STEM and problem solving can be developed when building and using robotic arms.

My first attempt to build one is to start with this Robotic arm with 7 servos project from Thingiverse. Gee... it was a 2010 project. 

3D printing of the parts were going smoothly. When assembling, I found that I need to purchase some components such as servos, hex m3 studs and controllers. For the servos, I use 5 compatible S3003 servos and 2 MG90S. At the moment, I am still waiting for delivery of 1 S3003 servo. Hence, this is still a make-in-progress project. Below is a picture of its current shape.

I plan using Arduino and Bluetooth to control this robotic arm with a mobile device. Based on some experience when I make the Arduino Car, it should not be too difficult to program a simple manual control on mobile device. However, it could be difficult if I want to precisely control its movement with numerical data. 

Stay tuned and I will report further if any progress. Meanwhile, I have also programmed a 3D animation of a 4-rotation robotic arm and a 3D simulation (controllable) of robotic arm in my VRMath2 website.

To be continued....

By Andy Yeh (2020)