Automation possible?
How five students bring a KUKA robot model to life.
The goal at the end of the summer semester was quite ambitious: a motorized model robot. The five KUKA employees Ferdinand Buchmann, David Dorkel, Melissa Haas, Lukas Laubmeier and Tim Masurek were only further motivated by this. With success: the dual students developed a kit for a KUKA robot that can be controlled via smartphone.
A miniature robot of their own that can be programmed. What had previously been in the minds of a few trainers at the KUKA Training Center was implemented by students as part of their Systems Engineering lecture at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Augsburg. In cooperation with the Fritz-Felsenstein-Haus, a complete kit for a KUKA model robot that can be flexibly controlled was developed in just four months. This can be done either with mobile devices such as a smartphone or tablet, on a PC or with a remote control developed specifically for the Fritz-Felsenstein-Haus that allows operation by people with physical limitations.
The model comes out of the 3D printer and corresponds to the shape of its larger colleagues. However, it has an advantage in terms of price: the automated robot model costs less than 40 euros.
The five KUKA employees already have plans to further develop their robot model, even though the project is completed as part of their studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering: in addition to improved cable routing, the kit is to be designed as open source, for example.
