My Butler Robot: Building the Robot Arms

The robot arms will consist of a gripper and an arm which makes 90 degree revolutions.

The gripper that I used came from one of those robot grabber toys.

You will also need the following PVC parts , I believe one is called a threaded PVC connector and the other is a 2" length pipe with a piece of plastic sticking out in the back.

Put the threaded connector over the pipe piece and connect the end of that pipe to the gripper. Hot glue the end of the pipe to the gripper.

Now take any piece of PVC pipe that is threaded on the end and cut the pipe around three inches from where the threaded part begins.

Hotglue that piece that was just cut to the end of a different 17" PVC pipe.

Now take both pieces outside and spray paint them black.After its dry you can attach the gripper to the pipe by just twisting the threaded connector on top of the threaded portion of the long PVC pipe.

Now take one of the two Power Wheels motors and mount the long PVC pipe of the robot arm to it , using some small L brackets.Use hot glue if you want to secure it more. The small L bracket that I put was 7" from one end and 10" from the end with the gripper.

Now attach the motor to the body using two screws.

Your robot should now look like this

Take another piece of the same 17" PVC pipe and attach a threaded connector.

Spray paint that black and mount it to a motor with two small L brackets(one on top and one on bottom) as we did before to the other arm. Use hotglue if needed to secure the arm.

Make sure both arms are secured in place .Here is what you should have so far by the robot's body:

And the back view for those who need it:

There should be two wires coming from each motors. Connect the red wires from each of the motors and connect those red wires to the positive terminal of the 6V battery pack.

Connect the Negative terminal of that 6V battery to the negative of the 12V battery ( which is common ground) then connect the black wire of the left arm motor to Output #6 , and the black wire of the right arm motor to Output #7.

Solder on wires to the existing wires connected to the gripper and connect the red wire to the positive terminal of the 6V battery and the black wire to output #15.

Open up the servo and solder on longer wires to the motor terminals. ( the red and black wires pictured)

Attach the connector featured to the servo

Attach the servo connector to the pipe connector and tighten them together.Then mount the servo the PVC pipe arm of the right arm using screws or hotglue.

Hotglue the motorized wheel to the bottle holder on an angle so that the wheel brushes against the cap of the bottle.

Solder on longer wires to the motorized wheel . Connect the red wires of both the servo motor and the motorized wheel to the positive terminal of the 6V batttery. Connect the black wire of the servo to Output #8 of the Phidgets. The black wire of the motorized wheel should be connected to Output #9.A cup can be attached on a L bracket if you want to add one.

Everything should be wired up now and now you should clean up the wires - that means tape them up, wire tie them , etc. Just make it less messy to work with. Heres what you should have :