Simple Robotic Arm Made Out of Cardboard Pieces -- Part 2: How to make it



           

This post I will be covering on how to create a simple robotic arm out of cardboard pieces. This project is fairly simple and based on the Arduino's IDE example "Knob." I will be covering on what parts are necessary and where to get them.

List of Parts
                
The following parts are necessary to complete this project:













         The only downside is that it's coming from China. But it is inexpensive.




  • Batteries -- A 9V battery can be used to power the Arduino or you can just power it through a USB cable. You will also need a battery pack that fits 4 AA batteries. This battery pack will power the servos.
  • Jumper Cables/Wires -- You will also need some jumper cables/wires to make connections between the Arduino and the breadboard. But if you get them together with the breadboard it will help you with costs and time. 
  • And Cardboard!
Tools

     For this project you will need the following tools:
  • Pair of scissors
  • Razor blade or Box Cutter
  • Hot Glue Gun or any other means to glue/hold parts together.

Making the Individual Arms

Now it is time to draw out the arms on a piece of cardboard that you can find around. The dimensions of the three arms can be seen below in the drawings.



The first arm is the one to the left. This has a height of 90mm with a width of 23mm. The second arm in the middle with the two rectangular cuts inside of it will hold two servos. Each inner cut is 13mm wide with a height of 23.45mm. The edges of these cuts will be 5mm away from the outer edge of the entire arm on the left and right. It will also be 9mm apart from the bottom and the top edge. These distances can be seen by the arrows and their color. Red arrows mean a distance of 5mm while the green arrows mean a distance of 9mm. One thing that I have noticed was that the dimensions marked by red arrows were pretty thin that sometimes the arm would bend. So probably an overall wider width for arm 2 can help with that. Just make sure you have the inner rectangles centered. 

The final arm has only two important dimensions. The width of the third arm at the bottom is 22mm while the height of the left and right side of the arm is 33mm. The other 3 edges can be any length that you would like or any shape. 




Once you have drawn the arms out on the cardboard, you can use the pair of scissors to cut them out. The only suggestion I have here is when it comes to cutting out the smaller rectangles in the second arm you should use a razor blade. Using a pair of scissors can be hard to cut them out. The razor blade cuts it more precisely and helps from cutting towards the outer edge of the arm.

One more suggestion would be in making the second arm wider. So instead of using a width of 23mm, try to go a little bigger. The reason for this is that the distance between the smaller rectangles and the outside edge is really small using my first dimension. My first dimension that I used in the video was a width of 21mm. So the distance between the rectangles and the outer edge on the left and right was only 4mm. Later on this caused the arm to bend. So I suggest using a bigger width for the second arm.

Assembling the Arm

For the first thing to do would be grabbing the second arm and placing two servos inside the two rectangular cuts, as shown below.



After doing that, grab the first arm and attach a servo on its side with a rubber band as shown in the picture below.


Make sure the rubber band is holding the servo firmly against the arm but don't over tighten it. Have the servo horn have some distance away from the cardboard so the arm can rotate about the servo horn. The next step is to then glue this servo horn onto a large base as shown below.


Make sure the base is pretty big so the arm won't topple over when it is in action. The base size I used was about 3 inches by 6 inches. This base wasn't big enough to hold the arm securely. So maybe going with a larger size might help. If not, what I did was used a caliper to weigh down the base. You could probably use coins or something heavy to hold the base securely. 

Now the next step would be gluing one of the horns from the second arm to the first arm as shown below.


The horn should be glued with the horn pointing up and down. Before gluing the horn, decide what kind of range you would like your arm to have. The servos provide about 180 degrees for motion. But you can choose where this range can be set at. For example, the way I have set up this arm would allow it to go pretty low but can could move a little past its vertical position. You can get the arm to move from left to right if you place the horn on the servo vertically while the arm is in a 90 degree position to the right. In this 90 degree position, you can place the horn vertically on the servo. When glued onto the first arm in this position, you will be able to rotate the arm from 90 degrees to right to 90 degrees to the left. Again, you can decide this. Just make sure you won't have it its range where its minimum position would be pointed straight downward and its maximum towards straight up. This would cause the arm to go really low to the point where it will interfere with the base/ground. 

After gluing the second servo horn onto the first arm, you will do the same with the third arm. You will just simply glue the third arm onto the third servo horn that is being held in the second arm as shown below. 


Once that is done, you have completed in making the arm.



Making the Connections

When it comes to making the electronic connections I found a useful program called Fritzing that allows me to display the circuit of the project with clear pictures and wiring. I decided to use this program to show and explain how to make the connections along the way. Hopefully they will be clear enough for anyone to follow. 

To start off, the potentiometers were placed on the breadboard and an Arduino Uno was placed as right above the breadboard.


I will try to follow the layout of the parts as the way they were shown in the video. So the 3 potentiometers were placed as shown. Each potentiometer has 3 prongs or connections. In this setup the prong to the left will be connected to the 5V from the Arduino and the prong to the right will be connected to a ground pin on the Arduino. The middle prong for each potentiometer is the signal which will be connected to an analog pin on the Arduino. So what I did next was connect a wire from the 5V pin on the Arduino to the power rail on the top portion of the breadboard and a wire between a ground pin on the Arduino to the negative rail on the breadboard as shown below. 


Once that was done, it was time to connect all the left prongs of each potentiometer to the positive rail and the right prongs to the ground rail, as shown below.


For the last prong left on each potentiometer, the middle one, they were connected to a specific analog pin on the Arduino as shown below.


For the first potentiometer to the left, the middle pin was connected to A0 on the Arduino. The second potentiometer has its middle pin connected to A2. The last potentiometer's middle pin was connected to A5. These signal wires will provide the different readings the potentiometer will have during the turning of the knob. 

The next step would be to connect an external power source to the breadboard for the servos. The battery pack is connected to the unused bottom rails, as shown below.


The three servos will also have their ground wires connected to the bottom negative rail as shown in the picture above. The ground wires on the micro servos would be the brown wires.The first servo, Servo 1, will be the servo that is glued to the base and connected to the first arm. Servo 2 will be the servo that will be connection between the first and the second arm. Servo 3 will be the last servo that controls the small last arm. It connects arm 2 to arm 3.

Once that is done, it is time to connect the power wires from each servo to the power rail at the bottom. The power wires on each servo will be the red wire. The connections will be as follows:


Once the servos have their power and ground wires connected to the bottom rails, the last thing to do will be connecting their signal wires to the Arduino. In the diagram, these signal wires are yellow. But on the actual micro servos, they are orange wires. So for Servo 1, the signal wire will be connected to pin 9. Servo 2 will be connected to pin 10 and Servo 3 will be connected to pin 11. So the final circuit is as follows.


That is all for the wiring and connections for the simple robotic arm. The last thing to do is to upload the program onto the Arduino. To power the Arduino, you either use the USB cable or a 9V battery to power it.

Uploading the Program

The program for this simple arm is basically the "knob" example that comes in the Arduino's IDE. I just simply added two more servos and potentiometers in the program to be able to control the robotic arm via the potentimeters. So the program to upload on the Arduino is as follows:

/* 

 Controlling a servo position using a potentiometer (variable resistor) 

 by Michal Rinott <http://people.interaction-ivrea.it/m.rinott> 



 modified on 8 Nov 2013

 by Scott Fitzgerald

 http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Knob


 Added two more servos and potentiometers to control

 the simple robotic arm
 -Gerardo Ramos October 26, 2015
*/

#include <Servo.h>

Servo servo1, servo2, servo3;  // create servo objects to control a servo

int potpin = 0;  // analogs pin used to connect the potentiometer
int potpin2 = 2;
int potpin3 = 5;

int val;    // variables to read the value from the analog pin
int val2;
int val3;

void setup()
{
  servo1.attach(9);  // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
  servo2.attach(10);
  servo3.attach(11);
}

void loop() 
  val = analogRead(potpin);            // reads the value of the potentiometer 
  val = map(val, 0, 1023, 0, 180);     // scale it to use it with the servo between 0 and 180 
  servo1.write(val);                  // sets the servo position according to the scaled value 
  
  val2 = analogRead(potpin2);
  val2 = map(val2,0,1023,0,180);
  servo2.write(val2);
  
  val3 = analogRead(potpin3);
  val3 = map(val3,0,1023,0,180);
  servo3.write(val3);
  
  delay(15);                           // waits for the servo to get there 
  

Once you have uploaded the program, you should be good to go. That pretty much sums up everything for this project. If I have left out anything or have a question just drop a comment and I'll try to get to you as soon as possible.


October 26, 2015

48 comments:

  1. what application to do that arduino program?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can download their software on their website at
      https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software
      Once you download it, you can then upload the code onto an Arduino using their software.

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    2. i bought "UNO R3 ATmega328P CH340 Mini USB Board for Compatible-Arduino OU" from ebay, is it the same arduino uno like you used? i am affraid it will be failed to isntall or use it.. i will give you the link to see it.. wait

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    3. http://m.ebay.com/itm/221804315610

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    4. I checked out the link and I can't be certain if it'll work or not. But reading the description of the product, it seems that it may work. Only way to find out is when it is time to upload a program onto the board.

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    5. okay i will try it... i will show uou if my first robotic arm project success..

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    6. That will be awesome, good luck!

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  2. am thinking to make this as my mini project in ma university..

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  3. That's awesome If your school has 3D printers, then maybe you can 3D print the parts to make them more durable.

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    Replies
    1. hi! im 13 years old and im from india. our school has a "Tinkering lab" and does have 3d printers

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    2. but doesn't the servo need a motor drive, just so that the arduino doesn't fry...

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  4. Great project and particularly well presented.
    Many thanks.
    Ron (au)

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  5. sir ihave downloaded the software what should i do now

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  6. can i modify the program and use five servo and five potentiometer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes you can, just add the two servos to the power rails where the batteries are connected to. Then for the signal wires, you will connect them to any available digital pins. You will have to add some lines to the code that will work with the pins that you have selected for the two additional servos.

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  7. Love how detailed this is. I'm new to this, and trying to come up with something to automatically press a button repeatedly every few seconds, and wondering if this can be modified to do that? Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. I think this is possible. I got the idea of this simple robotic arm from http://letsmakerobots.com/robot/project/micro-servo-robot

      In that project, the robot performs a movement repeatedly. To perform this task, you may be required to use matrices like in his program. It depends if you really want to use a robot arm to perform the button pushing. But I think it is possible to modify this project to do it but it may take some time to figure out a program for it.

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    2. Do you have the 3D files for it?

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  8. can you give the program of 5 servos

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  9. it is pretty simple. You'll just need to add 2 more servos in the program and decide where to place their pins on the Arduino and make sure it matches in the program. I quickly added two more servos in the existing program. I didn't run it through the Arduino IDE so I do not know if it contains any errors. If it does, it should be fairly easy to pinpoint the errors and correct them.

    #include

    Servo servo1, servo2, servo3; // create servo objects to control a servo

    int potpin = 0; // analogs pin used to connect the potentiometer
    int potpin2 = 2;
    int potpin3 = 5;
    int potpin4 = 3;
    int potpin5 = 4;

    int val; // variables to read the value from the analog pin
    int val2;
    int val3;
    int val4;
    int val5;

    void setup()
    {
    servo1.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
    servo2.attach(10);
    servo3.attach(11);
    servo4.attach(8);
    servo5.attach(12);
    }

    void loop()
    {
    val = analogRead(potpin); // reads the value of the potentiometer
    val = map(val, 0, 1023, 0, 180); // scale it to use it with the servo between 0 and 180
    servo1.write(val); // sets the servo position according to the scaled value

    val2 = analogRead(potpin2);
    val2 = map(val2,0,1023,0,180);
    servo2.write(val2);

    val3 = analogRead(potpin3);
    val3 = map(val3,0,1023,0,180);
    servo3.write(val3);

    val4 = analogread(potpin4);
    val4 = map(val4, 0, 1023, 0, 180);
    servo4.write(val4);

    val5 = analogread(potpin4);
    val5 = map(val5, 0, 1023, 0, 180);
    servo5.write(val5);

    delay(15); // waits for the servo to get there

    }

    ReplyDelete
  10. and i edited every thing but still it is not working

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  11. can you give me 4 servo program

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry about the previous program in the comment. It didn't include the library and I was writing the analog read function wrong. It should be analogRead not analogread, I forgot to capitalize the r.

      Below is a program for 4 servos and it checked out good in Arduino's IDE. For some reason when I try to copy and paste the comment and then publish the comment, the library disappears from the program. So don't forget to include that in the program right after #include. If you don't know what I am referring to, look at the original program in the post. You'll see the servo library that needs to be included.

      #include

      Servo servo1, servo2, servo3, servo4;

      int potpin = 0; // analogs pins for potentiometer
      int potpin2 = 2;
      int potpin3 = 5;
      int potpin4 = 3;

      int val; // variables to read the value from the analog pin
      int val2;
      int val3;
      int val4;

      void setup()
      {
      servo1.attach(9); // attaches servos to pins
      servo2.attach(10);
      servo3.attach(11);
      servo4.attach(8);
      }

      void loop()
      {
      val = analogRead(potpin); // reads the value of the potentiometer
      val = map(val, 0, 1023, 0, 180); // scale it to use it with the servo between 0 and 180
      servo1.write(val); // sets the servo position according to the scaled value

      val2 = analogRead(potpin2);
      val2 = map(val2,0,1023,0,180);
      servo2.write(val2);

      val3 = analogRead(potpin3);
      val3 = map(val3,0,1023,0,180);
      servo3.write(val3);

      val4 = analogRead(potpin4);
      val4 = map(val4, 0, 1023, 0, 180);
      servo4.write(val4);

      delay(15); // waits for the servo to get there

      }

      Delete
  12. how to make the gripper for the arm?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You probably would need to 3D print one if you want to use a gripper. On thingiverse.com, you can find a couple of robotic arms that use grippers that you could maybe 3D print. The link below is one example of where you can get a gripper.

      http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1015238/#files

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Hello. Um can you kindly tell me what the applications of this robotic arm are?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure what kind of application you can use this for. It's just mostly for a learning experience to get into microcontroller programming.

      You could possibly program it to perform a action repetitively like in assembly lines. Here's a link to someone who programmed their own robotic arm to perform an action repetitively.

      https://youtu.be/bLnAJ-mSElE

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  15. could we use anything else in place of potentiometer

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  16. Hi... Can you please post the schematics (scheme) , how to connect them .. looks like the pictures on this site are dead :/
    So please drop a link in the comment :D

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  17. sir i want to make it with 4 potentiometers and 4 servos can u pls gimme the program for it

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  18. Sir, Your's explain simple robot is perfect and thanks a lot. I want to do robotic manipulation pick up soft materials. I have no example programs. Please help and what should I do.

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  19. do you have image or tutorial for circuit 4 servo

    ReplyDelete
  20. hi, can you teach me in using cytron pic16f877a instead of arduino? and the coding for mikroC?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thanks for the great video, Gerardo. My Odyssey of the Mind team is using it to build their robot's arm. Having trouble following the connections on the breadboard and arduino, and the images on this page are no longer active. Can you send diagram or link to new images? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  22. you got a mailbox?so i can show you some pictures. i do have a few questions. i uploaded the program, and it just didn't work. servo motor didn't rotate at all!

    ReplyDelete
  23. why does the program say the code is wrong?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thanks for sharing the simple steps for making robotic arm by cardboard pieces.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I don't know why the 2nd potentiometer turn servo 2 and servo 3 together.help me please

    ReplyDelete
  26. I really like your post and you have shared the whole concept on simple robotic arm really well. And Very beautifully soulful read, thanks for sharing.

    Angular Ball Bearing

    ReplyDelete