This Simple Robot Arm is great for beginners trying to learn about robotics, electronics, Arduinos and engineering. The aim was to make a robot arm that uses standard parts that lots of people already have and does not require any hardware, you can probably make this working arm with things you have in your drawer!

Video of the arm available here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8MM58L4rsQ

This robot arm is made from four FDM printed sections, standard 9g Servos, standard petentiometers and an Arduino board (or even a raspberry Pi etc). All you need is to print the sections, glue the servo horns to the pieces, assemble the arm, configure the Arduino board, and set up your controls, whether using the control base included or your own controls.

This is a great project for high school, A-Level, BTEC or Undergraduate study. This is my submission for my Level C undergraduate degree.

The print took me around 12 hours in total but will vary depending on your configuration

Attached is the Arduino code I used to control the arm

Anet A8

Doesn't Matter

Yes

Medium

20%

Carefully remove the support material, use hot glue to attach the Servo horns, use the standard screws or hot glue to attach the servos to the segments, put the pieces together, create a pulley mechanism for the claw using a paperclip. Lastly, attach the servos, potentiometers to the board, and upload the code.

I designed this from scratch using Fusion 360. I first started by measuring a 9g Servo for dimensions and designed from the base up. In total there were four versions of the arm.