Bot grabs stuff with a balloon

Sean Ragan had previously blogged a video of this cool robot. Now, courtesy of the MAKE Flickr pool, we see some beauty shots. This clever robot, built by Steve Norris, picks up small objects within a gripper consisting of a balloon filled with coffee grounds.

I constructed my own version of the Cornell University Universal Gripper using parts that I had lying around my lab. This includes the CrustCrawler SG6-UT Robotic Arm, a Yost Engineering ServoCenter controller, a Reynolds Handi-Vac, and a balloon filled with coffee grounds.

I really like his suction release servo kludge…