3 Degree of Freedom Arm

This was one of my first projects as a part of my robotics team. This was designed to transport and squeeze a saturated sponge at the Canadian International Rover Challenge (CIRC).

As part of the Coolant Refilling task of CIRC, we were required to transfer coolant from one container to another using a sponge. Thus, the team decided to create a purpose-built arm for this task. Unfortunately, the pandemic was in full swing during this period, so we had limited access to materials and tools. As such, the design was simplified as much as possible to use only stock materials with as little machining as possible.

The arm features 1 prismatic joint and 2 revolute joints with a parallel gripper as the end effector. Each joint is actuated using a geared DC motor. The claws on the gripper were designed to grab and squeeze a standard industrial sponge. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 competitions were cancelled so this design never got to the manufacturing stage.