Design and Implementation of a Locally-Sourced Robotic Arm

This paper discusses the design of a low-cost educational robot arm system. The robotic arm was developed as an undergraduate project at the Obafemi Awolowo University. The robotic arm system is a five Degree of Freedom (DOF) system and is fully functional having all of its joints (apart from the gripper) capable of 360 degrees movement. The paper shows how cost was reduced in the design of the robot. The paper posits that through the process of building such a robot system, students can be introduced to sustainability, machine design, basic mechanics, electronics, and computing. A cost breakdown and analysis of the robotic arm developed is also given. In conclusion, the studies show that an educational robotic arm made using locallyavailable materials is not only feasible and viable for teaching robotics especially at early stages, but can be low-cost.