Robotic 3D Printers Become a Reality
If you have seen Iron Man, you would have noticed the one-armed robots that work with Tony Stark as fire extinguishers, handymen and more. What if there was a smaller version of that one armed robot. The good news is, embedded engineers have already invented such a robot.
This multi-tasking robot can do things like laser etching, 3D printing, painting, resin 3D printing, carving, milling, PCB fabrication, cutting, writing, plotting and more (thanks to interchangeable heads). The best thing is, it is so small that it can sit on your desktop.
Most low cost 3D printers are constructed in a cubic frame, which not only restricts the motion of the printing head, it also limits the objects you can create using the 3D printer. But this fabrication system is mounted on a round base, capable of rotating 180 degrees.
In many ways, these miniature robotic arms remind you of the gigantic robotic arms that assemble cars in a car factory. You can even use two of these beauties together if you want to undertake more complicated tasks.
Another cool thing about this robot is, you can create your custom tool heads by using the application programming interface and hardware development kit provided with the system. Embedded designers can surely benefit from this new development (PCB fabrication, plotting).
