Polymorph Robotic Arm

Making a robotic arm is a good introductory project for those wanting to get started with robotics. A simple robot arm can be straight forward to build and would require hobby servo motors to actuate each joint, a control system such as the Arduino, and a power source. Nevertheless, one of the most difficult aspects of such a project is making the mechanical parts that hold the actuators together. Alexey from robocraft.ru (site in Russian) made his entire robotic arm complete with claw out of Polymorph (a.k.a Shapelock), a low-melting-temperature plastic that can be moulded and manipulated with bare hands. His craftsmanship is remarkable and as shown in his picture log (you will need to use Google translate if you don't speak Russian), he used many ingenious ways in order to shape the various parts of the arm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3PQP8FQU4A See the robot in action in the videos above and pay particular attention to the control system used. It involves several potentiometers and even more Polymorph.

Via Hack a Day.