In late 2017 I started working on designing an umbrella holder that could be mounted on the back of a wheelchair or stroller. That project morphed into being a wheelchair mounted robotic arm.
Major accomplishments with this project include:
- Creation of software that allows a user to move one joystick to control an entire robotic arm. The prototype controller has a joystick and one button. Pressing the button transfers control from one set of motors to the next and can cycle control through the entire arm back to the beginning.
- Putting it all together and getting everything to work (somewhat) smoothly.
I’m mostly pausing this project for now because of a few reasons. One, it is prohibitively expensive for me to bring this product to market for real. I didn’t understand all the different regulatory processes when I started working on this, but since I finished the software, I figured I might as well throw together a body and assemble at least one prototype to demonstrate it.
Overall, though, I’m pretty much just working on my automated food production line when I have free time now.
Here’s an older video of me presenting the prototype with the software working: