YouTuber “Emily the Engineer” has developed a robotic arm that was produced using 3D printing. The arm consists of 3D-printed plastic parts and was specially designed to be able to grip and hold other tools and objects.
According to Emily, the development of this robotic arm was a particular technical challenge. To enable precise movements and good gripping force, she experimented with different drive solutions and joint mechanisms. The main difficulty was to produce stable components with the lowest possible weight.
The finished robot arm has two gripper arms and was made from flexible filament. It can be controlled via two buttons on the handle. Emily optimized functionality and haptics several times and consistently used the possibilities of 3D printing to produce prototypes and test versions quickly and cheaply.
According to Emily, the arm can be used for a variety of tasks. In her video, she demonstrates how the robotic arm can help with putting away groceries and handing over tools or consumables.
She emphasizes that the development of the arm was only possible due to the flexibility of 3D printing with plastic. The option of being able to produce prototypes quickly and at very low cost was the decisive success factor.
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