While getting your own robotic arm can be pricey, a China-based company called 7Bot wants to provide everyone with a desktop robotic arm that’s affordable and easy for everyone to use.
The 7Bot Arm is a 6-axis desktop robot arm with an aluminum body and six degrees of freedom powered by high torque metal digital servos with force-control support — oh, and it can see, think, and learn.
The 7Bot Arm was modeled after industrial robot arms on the market , but can be used as a desktop companion by using the company’s computer vision sample codes and adjusting the parameters to develop an assembly line robot to help you out.
The company has released numerous videos showing 7Bot dancing, playing instruments,tackling a game of chess, painting, and making tea to give the public an idea of what the robot can do.
The company also encourages supporters to buy two robot arms so for custom humanoid robot creations.
According to the company’s Kickstarter campaign, the robot arm can be controlled from almost any interactive device such as a traditional mouse and keyboard, or gesture-controlled devices like Leapmotion and Kinect sensors.
“You can use a Leapmotion sensor to control 7Bot Arm to follow your gestures, and use Kinect sensors to make the 7Bot ARM dual imitate your movement of upper limb in real-time.And we have made web controlling application by using a Raspberry Pi as the host and with real time feedback,” the company states.
The custom servos offer precise position feedback so users can quickly set up and operate 7Bot in teaching mode without any codes. Instead, users can drag each joint of the robot to a serious of desired way points. The movements will be recorded, and then can be replayed in an optimized path so you can easily guide 7Bot Arm into performing some tasks for you.
For more information visit 7Bot Arm’s Kickstarter page. The company has already exceeded its $50,000 funding goal and orders are expected to begin shipping January 2016.
Watch 7Bot play the xylophone in the video below, or visit 7Bot’s YouTube channel for a complete list of videos exploring what 7Bot can do.
