Chapter 13
Robby Armstrong
Just because it doesn’t move, it doesn’t mean it’s not a robot. Some of the world’s most sophisticated bots are nailed to the floor. They’re robotic arms, used for such jobs as building cars, playing a mean game of chess, and even delicate surgery. The robot arm is a science unique to itself, with its own special set of challenges, techniques, and solutions.
In this chapter you’ll learn how to build an extensible—you can build onto it—Arduino-based arm. We’ll call our arm-o-bot Robby Armstrong, a salute to both Robby the Robot from the classic film Forbidden Planet, and the 1970s kids’ toy Stretch Armstrong, a rubberized wonder without a backbone, but with amazingly muscular biceps.
The completed Robby Armstrong, ...