DIY 3-DOF Robotic Arm for Teaching and Learning

The robotic arm is used in many automated jobs in the industry and education tool in academia. In understanding the robotic arm’s kinematic motion, the simulation of this manipulator must be paired with the real hardware to translate the mathematical formulation to the movement of the electrical and electronic components for the electrical engineering students. However, the price of the complete set of robotic arms with its maintenance cost for educational use can be costly for the whole class or individual experience. Therefore, in this paper, an initiative has been taken to develop a DIY 3-DOF robotic arm to help students understand the theory of this manipulator’s kinematic motion later in the class. The students must initially understand the rotation and the limitations of the servo motor. They can use this limitation later in their simulation to control the movement of the robot manipulator. In the findings, the calibrations and testing of the servo motor’s angular rotation with a simple input from a serial monitor are presented to allow the DIY 3-DOF robotic arm to be used efficiently later in the robotic class as an aided teaching material.