Development of a 6-DOF 3D Printed Industrial Robot for Teaching and Learning

The trend in modern manufacturing has led to a paradigm shift from the conventional high method to heavily automated processes. This comes with a high cost for those who want to meet up to the increasing pace of this revolution as the machines and the knowledge to control them is becoming expensive. Two major areas that have contributed in shaping this achievement of the industry 4.0 are additive manufacturing and robotics. With the drop in the prices of 3D printers and availability of off-the-shelf electronics components, the industrial experience is brought nearer to those who cannot afford it, especially students who need learn the adequate skill-sets in order to efficiently perform in this fourth industrial revolution. To this end, this paper aims at building a low-cost 3D printed robotic arm for teaching and learning purpose. The robotic arm was printed using three different kinds of 3D printers, with two most common materials (PLA and ABS). The forward and inverse kinematics of the robotic arm were presented. Finally, the developed robotic arm was controlled using the Arduino mega 2560. A simple pick and place experiment were conducted using the robotic arm. Also, the joint accuracies of three major joints were calculated. It is believed that the robotic arm in this paper will serve as an object of study and a means of tutoring students on robotics education.