Building a hackable robotic arm

Arduino

Alasdair Allan is a scientist, author, hacker and tinkerer, who is spending a lot of his time thinking about the Internet of Things. In the past he has mesh networked the Moscone Center, caused a U.S. Senate hearing, and contributed to the detection of what was—at the time—the most distant object yet discovered.

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@aallan

November 15th, 2014July 6th, 2015 4

This post is coming to you live from the Elephant & Castle Mini Maker Faire being held today at the London College of Communication.

The MeArm is a small hackable robot arm by Ben Gray and Jack Howard. The arm was designed from the ground up to be low cost and easy to put together—with only a small number of relatively cheap parts. Built with just four hobby servos and out of no more than an A4 piece of acrylic (just over the size of a sheet of US Letter).

The #meArm in action

I talked to Ben Gray about his robotic arm and why he brought it along to maker faire today.

An interview with Ben Gray

All of the instructions, part templates, and source code for the arm are available online if you want to build your own.

The Elephant & Castle Mini Maker Faire is being held at the London College of Communication from 10am till 6pm. Entry is free to children (under 16) and students, tickets are £5 otherwise and available on the door.

Building a hackable robotic arm

By Alasdair Allan