Engaging Students' Creativity through Designing a Low-Cost Educational Robotic Arm

Shunafrica White, Jason Farmer, Akbar Eslami
2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings   unpublished
Robotic arms have been around for many years and are widely used within industries. In 2010, the availability of low-cost robotic arms increased substantially. These types of robots are ideal solutions with applications in automation, laboratory, and education because of their adaptability to various industries and tasks. The objective of this project is to design a low-cost/affordable industrial robot manipulator including base, arm, wrist, and end effector with similar functions to a human
more » ... and fingers with educational applications. The mechanism of the manipulator is similar to the articulated robot so that the links of the manipulator are connected by joints allowing rotational motion. For the end effector, a two-finger gripper is designed that allows the robot to pick up and place down an object. The proposed robot has 5 degrees of freedom and operates with Dynamixel AX-12A and RX-24-F servo motors and mechanical components to perform a variety of tasks and operations. All the mechanical components, including links, gripper, connectors, spur, and bevel gears are designed by SolidWorks and Cero computer aided design (CAD) software. A 3D printer is used to manufacture the mechanical parts. The microcontroller and software are utilized to program servo motors so that the robot can do the desired tasks. The design of this robot will provide an opportunity to educators to explore the knowledge of mechatronics that will eventually open a whole new world of learning to them.
doi:10.18260/1-2--30399 fatcat:oeuu4zvqpzfyve5lbdwcahz5pu