Ever wondered what it would be like to have Tony Stark’s robot arm assistant? The uArm is one of those real world inventions trying to make your geeky dreams come true, with probably less clumsy AI. The miniature industrial robot arm for your desk has been engineered by Chinese company uFactory and has recently managed to rocket pass its funding goal on Kickstarter.
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Made up of laser cut acrylic or wood parts, uArm is an Arduino-powered desktop 4-axis parallel-mechanism robot arm, modeled after the ABB industrial PalletPack robot — those things you’ll see looming over conveyor belts in car factories.
What will the average Joe use a robot arm for exactly? Apart from toying around with anthrax and other dangerous chemicals, as the campaign page puts it, use it as a desk lamp, install it on a mobile robot chassis base and move it around, or do other random geeky tasks such as programming it to play the xylophone.
Simply put, the uArm gives you a hand by allowing you to experiment with robotics and coding. For those who don’t know a thing about coding, it does come with a easy-to-use Windows application. The company notes, “Since it could be easily controlled with a smartphone, people with no programming background can also enjoy the fun of robotics.” The team is currently working on apps for iOS and Android.
The uArm’s design is also open-source. “We want to share our joy with the rest of the world and make more people realize how fun robotics can be! All of the design files, hardware and software will be released in May, 2014,” reads the Kickstarter campaign. uFactory is planning on launching more free-for-all robotics kits and mechanical platforms in the future.
