Developing Robot Manipulators in Mechatronics and Robotics

Robot manipulators can be designed and built in robotics and mechatronics courses to develop students' technical skills. The course using the robot set presented in this article was set up in 2011 for the mechatronics laboratory and has been conducted since then for undergraduate students in their final semester, allowing for completion of projects in just one semester while also providing enough flexibility to test different robot configuration and manufacturing processes. Student assessment of the mechatronics laboratory was carried out in the form of a questionnaire; the results showed that students perceive the course as challenging, innovative and well balanced regarding theory and practice, giving an above average evaluation compared to other courses. Students were organized in four-member teams and their projects started by describing the target requirements to be achieved by the prototype robot. In this article, the sub-assemblies of the mechanism are analyzed, main technical areas and their processes are discussed individually with emphasis on the methods and materials used, and results are presented along with some practical recommendations to extend the scope of such projects. It has been especially important to maintain a didactic approach and design the robot set with affordable components that can be easily obtained; this is also true for the tools and software used. This approach is also intended to introduce students to industrial design methodology, allowing for different manufacturing processes to be incorporated.