LittleArm Big Is an Arduino-Based Desktop Robotic Arm

Over the last few years, the Slant Robotics team has been hard at work developing 3D-printed robot arms targeted at STEM education. While their LittleArm has been extremely successful among the young Maker crowd, they set out to create something a bit larger and powerful for more practical applications.

Enter the LittleArm Big, an Arduino Nano-based 5DOF robotic device designed for high school classrooms, hackerspace workbenches, and in-home use.

It consists of less than 50 total components (12 of which are 3D-printed), and boasts a reach of 11.5 inches and a payload capacity of 0.25 pounds thanks to its high-strength metal gear servos.

Beyond that, the LittleArm Big is equipped with a Bluetooth module, an interchangeable gripper, and some extra ports for additional servos or analog/digital inputs.

In terms of software, the LittleArm Big can be controlled using either a desktop GUI or an Android phone over Bluetooth. It even has Google-powered speech recognition, capable of responding to commands such as “up,” “down,” and “rotate base,” as well as user-generated sequences that can be edited and triggered with particular keywords like “screwdriver” or “dance.”

Interested? Head over to Slant’s Kickstarter page to learn more about the latest LittleArm or pre-order one for yourself!