“Robot arms and hands: how to build them, use them and how they will matter more in the future.”
Prof. Martin Jagersand, University of Alberta

A typical industrial robot arm costs $100,000, and robots for medicine, space and research cost millions. A robot arm is more complex to build than a robot vehicle, but I will show some designs that can be built from $100-500 in material costs. I will also show some programming tricks that lets these not so precise model robots do manipulation tasks that are nearly as precise and difficult as those of an industrial arm. Robot arms are currently used mostly in precisely engineered manufacturing environments, but that may change. I will point out both some promises and potential pitfalls for robot manipulation in the more unpredictable and “messy” normal indoor and outdoor environments.