Roboteurs Remix a 3D Printed Six-Axis Robot

Roboteurs is a startup that specializes in robots and robotic components for education. They sell kits with electronics so teachers and kids can do fun educational projects with them. The team at Roboteurs made a 3D printed 6-axis robot arm. The design itself is a remix of the BCN3D Moveo arm and the Thor arm.

Check it out in action:

The entire robot arm was made using 3D printed components. The electronics come from the Raspberry Pi and SlushEngine. SlushEngine is a Kickstarter-funded stepper motor driver board that can drive up to four steppers at once. The team relied on 3D printers and material from Ultimaker for the project.

As Justin Policarpio from Roboteurs tells us, “we’ve been receiving a lot of interest from teachers, classrooms, and hobbyists wanting to replicate the robot. Reiner (our CTO) has been working hard to offer this robot as an advanced build it yourself kit. We’ve already created a beta kit that we’re going to start sending out this coming week, and it includes all the necessary hardware to make the robot, except the 3D Printed parts.”

The team is hoping from feedback from educators worldwide on the SlushEngine itself and the robot arm.

“Hey Ultimaker – we spent 9 days and 3 spools of filament making this 6 axis robot arm, we’re excited to show you it completed soon!” the Roboteurs team said on Facebook in December

CTO Reiner Schmidt tells us more about the project, including how they got started working on it:

“Over the course of the last year or so we have seen the different varieties of 3D printable robots growing. We wanted to add to this and figure out a way to make a simple offering for educators and makers that allow them to build this robot with just a 3D printer and the kit. To be honest we also just wanted to build it because it is plain cool.”

What materials did you use?

“We printed the whole robot from ABS because of its structural properties and low cost. Other materials could probably be used.”

What do you hope for the project to achieve?

“There are all kinds of 3D printed robots popping up now. At Roboteurs we have a lot of experience working with real industrial robots. We think that we can make a simple software and electronics package that allows people to easily use these robots in real applications. Because these robots are unique and require a lot of motors we are able to use the SlushEngine to make control and development of the robot much simpler. Other version of similar robots generally require some PC interface, with the Raspberry Pi no PC is needed and this robot is ready to run.”

We really think that classrooms the world over could benefit from 3D printed robotics. It is potentially a very low-cost way for kids to get involved with building and operating robots. By taking Raspberry Pi and other electronics, kids would also learn how electronics power their world. Electronics are now enclosed in many of the things that we use. We can not really see them nor do we understand how they work. By handling and building using Raspberry Pi kids can manipulate and understand robotics. They can see how they can change the way the robot works, see how to program it and see how to manipulate it. This kind of hands-on educational experience can really help children “get robotics.” Would your classroom benefit from having a robot in it? Discuss in the Six-Axis Robot forum at 3DPB.com.