I had no idea about https://github.com/stephane-caron/awesome-open-source-robots -- there's one of those for everything, I guess (and are also a just stunningly terrible way to distribute collections of links, IMHO, since creating Wikipedia pages is free and those can be edited by anyone with an account, versus the "open PR and pray" model of GitHub)
Or put another way, if you’re more familiar with Wikipedia, can you describe how to think about this type of thing being done on Wikipedia? Thanks.
This content is suitable for a wiki but not Wikipedia
(And screw Fandom).
In the field of robotics there are a lot of things that are expensive to do well, but you can do them badly at a much lower cost.
For example, for many industrial robot arm applications you need an arm that doesn't wobble - so you need stiff links and low-backlash actuators. You need to be able to precisely follow straight lines, so your position control feedback loops need to run fast. Six-axis control of the end effector is standard, gotta be able to move and rotate in X, Y and Z to accomplish arbitrary assembly tasks. And of course it can't be slow - on a production line, throughput is money! Don't forget the need for reliability, a design for 24/7 operation, and availability of maintenance and spare parts for 15 years. $20,000 please.
On the other hand, a robot arm for educating kids? Doesn't matter if it wobbles, or if it's slow, or if the position control isn't great, or if there are some rotations it can't accomplish, and it easily breaks. It'll still be cool and teach the kids plenty of stuff. $200.
$2000 is a typical price for a university group project that'll land somewhere between the two.
I will start by building the Koch robot arm with servos harvested from my kids toys. Let’s see how good that works.
