Developing Oomlout’s robotic arm

Our pals at Oomlout are looking for some open dev love for their robotic arm project. They write on their blog:

Its time to take open source hardware to the people who can make it really awesome, you.

Part of what makes open source software so powerful is the, varied skill sets of the people who work on it. While we at .:oomlout:. think everything we produce is awesome the depth of skill around our offices is admittedly rather limited. We can handle laser cutting and bolt counting but when it comes to math or programming or art we are quickly out of our depth.

Perhaps your an animator with a desire to bring your inverse kinematics knowledge into the physical world, or a researcher in need of an arm to move your beakers, or a puppeteer looking to produce an all robotic arm play, or a teacher looking to excite students, or something completely unrelated.   

We would like you to bring your expertise to this project. What we have is a five axis robotic arm design controlled by rather inexpensive hobby servos. (material and cutting cost about USD$150)

We can guarantee it is loads of fun to play with, and we think potentially very useful for more serious pursuits.

How to get started?

We have posted the design files up on Thingiverse along with the parts required to assemble your own (here). There are also photos from different angles to aid in the assembly (3D models to come). If you don’t have access to a laser cutter you can download the file for free and have the pieces laser cut at Ponoko  (here).

Who knows if we get enough people on board attendance at our developer meetings may grow beyond the oomlout’ers and our cat (and need more than a kitchen table).

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Controlled Servo Robot Kit
Our Price: $175.00
The Arduino Controlled Servo Robot Kit, also know as SERB, is a great open source project that includes everything you need to begin experimenting with robots and Arduino microcontrollers. Just assemble the precision laser-cut parts and you’re off and running, no additional hardware is needed. It even comes with a demo program pre-loaded onto the Arduino.

The SERB has a built-in breadboard that sits on the top of the robot. This allows easy access for additional sensors and electronics. It couldn’t be simpler to prototype on the fly with this amazing robot.