Development of 3D Printable Part Library for Easy to Manufacture Components for Educational and Competitive Robotics

Educational and competitive robotics enable hands on learning and experimentation. Despite cost effective and ease of access of open source micro-controllers, drives and sensors, the structural components and brackets continue to be very expensive. Motivated by the Robotics for Everyone initiative, we are developing many easy-to-manufacture parts that will allow learners to easily 3D print parts for (1) Structural assembly of robot chassis (2) Sensor mounting (3) Electronic control mounting (4) Power supply (5) Various power drives. The ecosystem of the robotic components is developed around extrusion structures and tubular elements and 3D printing is used for building the parts for testing and qualifying. Fixtures for mounting cameras for advanced machine learning and computer vision experiments are provided.