The Arduino is a cheap, fun way to get into building your own electronics. It can also be daunting to get started. Here, weâll show you how to get a start-to-finish Arduino primer with a killer project: building a sweet robot arm.
In this guide, weâre going to introduce you to Arduino using the meArm robot arm project as a guide to a variety of skills. The meArm is an open-source kit with all the parts you need to build a small, Arduino-powered robotic arm. You can order a ready-made set from stores like Hackaday, or download the plans from Thingiverse and cut them out yourself. You can use a laser cutter, 3D printer, or even carve the parts out of wood. The kits are relatively cheap (I got mine for about $50), so itâs pretty accessible.
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Why a Robot Arm?
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Learning any new skill is always a challenge. Arduino can be particularly daunting because youâre essentially learning how to build entire electronic devices from scratch. It requires learning several new skills all at once: electricity, breadboarding, coding, sensors, servos, remote controls, assembly, and more.
Any of these skills can be hard to learn on their own. While there are a wealth of tutorials online, itâs important to have a single, overarching goal that you can work towards. We also know that your brain learns better when you spread out your learning over time. Having something youâre excited about couldnât hurt.
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Building a robot arm is a long-term project that can cover all these needs at once. Iâve personally been attempting to learn Arduino projects off-and-on for the last nine months or so, and in that time, the robot arm has been the best learning experience Iâve had, particularly because:
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All that being said, this doesnât necessarily mean that this should be your first ever project. It can be! But if youâve never touched a circuit board, itâs okay to take it slow. Donât think of the robot arm as your first step. Think of it as your final exam. As soon as you get a good Arduino starter kit, you should try a couple basic things like plugging an LED into a breadboard or controlling it with a button, just to get the hang of it. You can probably skip the Love-O-Meter project, though.
Most importantly, Google everything. Remember, this is a long-term project. Weâre not going to walk you through every step, but we will show you the building blocks you need to get there. Donât expect to start with no experience on Friday and finish with a remote-controlled, sentient robot by Sunday. Weâll have plenty of links to guides throughout this article, and we fully expect that youâll leave here, follow those guides for a few hours, and come back. Think of this less like a step-by-step manual and more like a map. If you get a little lost along the way, donât be afraid to stop and ask for directions.
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What Youâll Need
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This guide will be divided into two main sections. The first will be getting the basic robot arm built and operational. The second will show you some optional projects that you can use to expand its capabilities. To get through the first section, hereâs what youâll need:
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These will get you started and cover the basics. Itâs also a lot to buy all at once, so donât feel bad if you donât want to go any further than this. Over time, you can add more tools and equipment to your arsenal.
What This Project Entails
Weâll assume that youâve acquired everything in the first bulleted list in the section above and youâre ready to put your robot together. We wonât detail every single step when other, more official guides already do, but weâll guide you through the different phases of the project. You can take this at whatever pace youâre comfortable with, but weâll break it up into chunks you can tackle across multiple weekends.
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Phase One: Construction
What It Entails: At this stage, youâre going to assemble your robot arm. It wonât do anything yet, but it will look cool. The company behind the kit has detailed instructions here. Your kit should come with a set of various plastic pieces, some screws, and four servos. If youâve never used a servo before, itâs a small, low-power motor that will power your robotâs movement. This kit uses one in the base, two on either side of the arm, and one in the gripper. If youâve ever built a piece of IKEA furniture, this shouldnât be too complicated. Borderlands 1 skip intro. Just follow the instructions precisely. The robot is more delicate than your coffee table, and over tightening a screw here, or using the wrong piece there can cause you headaches. Fortunately, the instructions above are very detailed and will warn your repeatedly before you can do something that will mess you up, so youâre in good hands.
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What Youâll Learn: Personally, this is my favorite part because you learn something that most project tutorials neglect: how to build the thing. Many projects show you a concept while attached to a breadboard, but never move it to something real. Here, youâll learn how to attach servos to working parts on a finished project. Youâll also learn the delicate art of working with tiny moving parts.
Time Required: The construction portion here can be done in just a few hours. However, I advise letting your work sink in for a bit. If youâve never worked with robotics before, this is a good time to examine how your bot was put together, how it can move, and start thinking about how you might mount your Arduino later on. The next step can start to get complicated, so donât rush into it. You can manually move the parts of your robot arm gently to play around with it. Donât force it too much, though, as you could damage the servos.
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Phase Two: Breadboarding
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What It Entails: The next step is to connect one of your servos to your Arduino. Youâll accomplish this with the use of a breadboard. A breadboard is a simple tool that allows to prototype electronic circuits before assembling them completely, no soldering required. Adafruit has an excellent tutorial here that will walk you through the steps of connecting your servo directly to the Arduino, as well as adding a potentiometer in later steps, which you can use as a knob to manually control movement.
If that paragraph was a little overwhelming, then this is a good time to back up and learn how breadboarding works. Sparkfun has an excellent guide here that explains how to use a breadboard and what you can do with it. Tutsplus has a great tutorial on how to connect an LED to a power source and add a button. Take time to assemble this and understand the circuit you just assembled. Once youâve got a grasp on how electricity flows through a simple circuit, you should be ready to connect one of your robotâs servos. From personal experience, this part can seem daunting. Assembling the parts and following instructions is easy, though. Understanding how it all works is the hard part, but it just takes time.
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What Youâll Learn: Breadboarding is the foundation of most hobbyist electronics prototyping. If you followed all of the guides above, youâll learn how to connect LEDs, buttons, resistors, potentiometers, and servos to either a power source or Arduino. With just those components, you can already make a lot of fun stuff. Once youâve got the basics down, itâs easier to build on it by learning about different types of components, how they work, and how to integrated them into your projects (more on some ways to do that in the expansion section below).
Time Required: If youâre already familiar with breadboarding, connecting the servo should take about five minutes. However, if youâve never touched electronics before, give yourself a day or two to read the guides above, fiddle around with various circuits, and get a feel for how they work. Iâd even advise taking a week to process the lessons youâve learned. Breadboarding circuits is simple, but it can be a difficult concept to grasp. And itâs not something you want to rush through, especially given how complicated the next section can get.
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Phase Three: Programming![]()
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Robot Arm Component
What It Entails: Once youâve got everything hooked up, itâs time to turn it on. For that, youâll need to have your Arduino IDE setup and plugged into your board. If you want to use CodeBender like I do, you can follow the Getting Started guide here. Alternatively, you can follow Adafruitâs guide to the official IDE here.
Once your environment is set up, youâll also start programming the thing. Adafruitâs guide has a simple servo sketch you can use to make your robot move. Iâd advise using the base servo (the one on the bottom) for this, as itâs the only one on your robot that has the full 180 degree motion. You could damage some of the other servos by forcing them to beyond their physical limits if you try this sketch with the other servos. However, once you understand how this sketch works, you can try modifying it to work with the others!
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What Youâll Learn: This is the phase where it all comes together. Youâll learn a bit about how servo movement works, and a lot about how to program an Arduino. If youâve never dabbled in programing before, you can drop the sweep sketch into the IDE and it will work, but Iâd advise checking out some of our previous guides on how to learn to code. The Arduino language shares a lot of syntax with C/C++ and Java, so if you have any experience with those, you should feel comfortable. You can also check out the Arduino reference library here.
Time Required: Even if you have some programming experience, Iâd advise taking another weekend to learn how to set up the Arduino IDE. Learning to code is a lifetime skill, so donât be afraid to work on this phase for a few weeks. You can build on this with the knob sketch Adafruit provided, which will allow you to manually control your robot. Donât be afraid to mess up. You can also experiment with some basic logic structures at this phase.
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Congratulations! You Just Made a Robot
If you made it through all of that, then you just learned a bunch of skills in one, long project. When I first put together this robot, I found it was surprisingly simple, despite being an introduction to a lot of complex topics. Once you make it to the end, though, most electronics projectsâlike the kind we regularly featureâdonât look so scary anymore.
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From here, you can start expanding on what you have. If you feel like you just barely got through this, try simple additions like adding an LED to indicate when the motor is turning, or a button to turn the movement on and off. Play around with the software a bit and see how it responds. If you screw up some software and overturn a servo, you can order super cheap replacements online.
Build On Your Knowledge with These Expansion Projects
Youâve built a robot. Now what? Well, assuming it hasnât turned sentient and tried to kill humanity, there are a number of projects you can pursue that can build on your existing project one piece at a time. We wonât go over every detail, but weâll give you some links to get you started:
![]() Control Multiple Servos at Once
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For my build, I ordered this microcontroller which can control up to sixteen servos on its own (which, for those counting at home, would add up to four meArm robots..sweet). The kit is not pre-assembled, which means it would require some soldering work. You can get other controllers like this one that are pre-assembled, but many cost more and do less. Personally, I think that a $15 controller is a decent way to practice soldering without risking too much if you ruin it, but if you donât want to take that chance, practice by soldering a couple wires together first. Here are some guides that can walk you through the process:
Add an Infrared Remote ControlMearm Instructions
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Infrared (IR) remote controls are deceptively simple (and can be a handy addition to nearly any Arduino project). All you need is a sensor and a remote. The remote will send codes to your Arduino, which you can then use to trigger commands. In this case, you could program your robot to start moving, stop moving, or to go to a certain pre-programmed position. Thereâs already a bunch of pretty great code out there you can use in your projects. For fun, you an even read the codes in your TV remote, if you want to, say, make your robot come alive any time someone changes the channel. Here are some resources youâll need to get started:
Use a Wii Nunchuk to Control Your Death MachineMearm Assembly
Alright, you want to get really crazy? Check out the above video showing a the robot armâthe same model you built!âbeing controlled by a Wii Nunchuk. It uses this breakout adapter (which you can plug a nunchuk directly into) and provides full joystick control, which means that you can make it move in any direction you want, like a futuristic puppet. If youâve reached the point where youâre ready to undertake this project using this guide, youâre probably back for the dozenth time, so welcome back. This is the most advanced add-on weâve included in this article, so donât feel bad if itâs a bit over your head. It is, however, really cool. Here are some resources for further reading:
As you can tell, the robot arm project covers a ton of concepts and skills in the Arduino hacking scene. If you can make it through this project without getting overwhelmed or giving up, you can probably tackle most of the Arduino projects we feature on a regular basis. Getting started can seem intimidating, but if you add to your knowledge and experience piece by piece, you can build something pretty awesome.
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