Pick and Place Robot Arduino - Spinel Crux L2

After the grand success of the Spinel Crux in the Arduino Robotics workshop, we started working on an add on, which can be placed on top the Spinel Crux – A Robotic Arm, controlled using hand gestures/joystick. A pick and place robot using Arduino and a cool robotic arm, with 4 DOF (degrees of freedom).

Spinel Crux was one of our most successful project that was well received within our RootSaid community as well as outside groups. It was a discussion topic that has been going around for more than a month.

About the Spinel Crux V1

For those who dont know what the Spinel Crux is, Spinel Crux is a remote control gesture controlled robot which can be used for Wireless surveillance in rough terrain and hostile situations.

To drive this remote control robot we used a control glove which acted as a gesture sensor that consist of an accelerometer and a flex sensor. The status of the robot can be remotely controlled and turned On and Off Using the flex sensor and the movement can be controlled using the accelerometer.

In the spinel crux, we use Arduino as well as a Raspberry Pi. Arduino MKR1000 is used on the control glove which will collect the analog data from the accelerometer and the flex sensor, convert them to UDP packets and send it to the gesture controlled robot.

The Raspberry Pi, which acts as a server in the Spinel Crux, receives these data packets, process them and drive the L293D motor driver IC which in turn controls the DC motors.

Building this one was really fun. And the best thing was the cool under glowing neon lights. This lights will glow whenever the robot is active and ready for action.

Meet the Spinel Crux L2 – the Pick and Place Robot

Spinel Crux L2 is an advanced version of Spinel Crux V1. We have added a robotic arm on top of the previously built remote control gesture controlled robot which will enable the bot to pick and place objects around it.

This one is also remotely controlled and can be controlled without nasty wires hanging around.

The Robotic Arm

I got the robotic arm kit from banggood.com. This robotic arm is made of good quality aluminum and is really light weight. This one have so many mounting points which will allow us to connect to any robot bodies/chassis without drilling mounting holes.

Click here to check it out

There are 4 servo motors which will give the robotic arm a total of 3 Degrees of Freedom. The servo motors are included and the working voltage is 4.8-6V.

Robot Chassis – DIY Smart Robot Kit

The chassis I used for making this pick and place robot is something I would like to talk about. I got this kit banggood.com. Not only this one, they have so many types of robot frames, motors and almost all the sensors for doing Arduino,raspberry pi and other electronics and hobby projects. You will get all these things for a cheap price with really fast and quality shipping.

And the great thing about this kit is they provide all the tools you need to assemble the frame together.

Get your DIY Robot Kit From BangGood

Click here to check it out!

How to Make DIY Pick and Place Robot

Really like this awesome looking robot?

We will now head over to the robotics tutorial section and will start building it. For your convenience, I will be dividing this post into two parts. In the first part, I will show you how to make the controlling glove and in the second part, I will show you how to build this DIY robot.

We will provide you with the design, code of the pick and place robot and links to all the products used in this project including this cool robot kit.

Links to the robot building kit are also available in our project tutorial pages so that you can buy any robot building kit you want and build your own DIY robot as per your needs.

Get Your Components

To build one yourself, you will have to get a robotic arm, robot chassis and some sensors. Click on this link and get everything you need for this project project.

Design your own PCBs for your Project!

I used Altium designer to draw the circuit and design the PCB. It is a powerful tool that can be used to design and create our own PCBs for our project as well as complex and multi-layer PCBs for industrial use.

If you are a DIY Electronic enthusiast, I bet this is gonna be really useful for you guys. I have been using it for the past 3-4 years and let me tell you guys, this is amazing! You can download the Free Trial of Altium PCB Designer from here.

PCB Design Tutorial using Altium

Check out the below video to start designing your own PCBs in Minutes!

Click here for complete tutorial, codes and circuit diagrams.