Robot Arm

Project Objective & Background

After completing the robotic finger, I wanted to take it a step further and build a device with more axes of motion. I found the EEZYbotARM and decided to try to print, build, power, and control it.

Joystick and Button D-Pad control for the robot. Joystick: rotation (X) and vertical movement (Y). D-Pad: grippers (X) and horizontal movement (Y). I used a 4-AA unit to power all four servos.

Assembled robot

The video shows the operational arm using the joystick and button pad alone, and then the controls together to get more range of motion.

Summary

I successfully assembled a robot arm with four axes of motion and implemented my own power and control methods. My main takeaways were to ensure printed hole sizes are correct to prevent having to drill out every single hole, and to triple-check assembly instructions to prevent installing sections backward.

Challenges

Problem: Arm tipping over when fully extended

Solution: Created a wide wooden base to screw the arm onto and did some tinkering to secure the servo motor in the base of the robot.

Problem: Only had one joystick available

Solution: The original plan was to control the robot using two joysticks, but I did not have any on-hand, so I improvised using a Button D-Pad instead. This actually proved to be a smoother control method since the joystick makes it hard to pick up on smaller movements and jumps the servo to far positions.