Use a touchscreen to control this robotic arm.

Normal robotic arms are controlled either by a GUI on the host PC or an analog system which maps human inputs into different degrees of rotation. Maurizio miscio, however, was able build a robotic arm that’s completely self-contained – thanks to an app on a smartphone that lives inside a control panel.

Miscio began his project by creating 3D models for each part, the majority of which were 3D printed. The gripper was one of them, as were various joints, each with a single rotation axis, and a large, circular base which acts as a stable platform for the arm to spin on. Then he began attaching five servos to each rotational axis and a single SG90 servo for the gripper. These motors were attached to an Arduino Uno, which also included an HC05 Bluetooth(r), serial module for external communications.

Miscio, with the aid of MIT App Inventor developed a mobile application that allows the user to rotate a servo motor in the desired direction. The app allows users to record a series motions and then \”play back\” the movements over Bluetooth.

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Move this custom robotic arm through a touchscreen interface