Wed, July 8, 2015Student Teaches Kuka Robot New Tricks with Some Help from 3D Printing

We really do live in a time of great discovery, as more and more we are seeing different approaches to digital manufacturing blend together to offer new solutions. While we quite literally have our hands full trying to keep up with “standard” 3D printing, we often run into cases where other technologies combine with 3D printing to push one another’s boundaries.

This is often seen in artistic and academic research, where the objective is not necessarily to produce something commercially viable as much as it is to explore new roads to find out if something can or cannot be done. This is the case for a graduate project conducted by Basia D?aman for her Industrial Design studies at the School of Form in Poznan, Poland.

Having access to a Kuka robotic arm, she was able to 3D print tailor made parts that enable the machine to weave carbon fiber coated with resin. The Kuka arm can be used for just about any type of digital production (Basia herself has programmed it to be a plotter and CNC mill in the past) and even as an extrusion system for 5 and 7 axes 3D printing.

In this case, Basia programmed it using Grasshopper to operate as an advanced “weaving machine” and was, thus, able to build a carbon construction around a supporting structure. The resulting stitches were taken from a Polish traditional embroidery style called “snutki” and were used as an example of “how to use the technology”. The program that guides the robot is flexible and generates a different outcome depending on the input points.

She built the tailor-made Kuka parts on a Zortrax 3D printer. Each part took a maximum of 3-5 hours to manufacture and assemble onto the robot. While the possible applications of this new trick will require some more exploration, the fact itself that such a project was possible seems significant. Before desktop 3D printing, developing a tailor-made component for a Kuka Robot within the context of a student project was not a matter of time, it was just plain impossible.

学生们教导卡库机器人一些3D打印的技能

我们确实生活在大发现的时代，随着越来越多的我们看到不同的方法，以数字化制造糅合在一起，以提供新的解决方案。虽然我们毫不夸张地说有我们忙得不可开交试图跟上“标准”的3D打印，我们经常会碰到情况下，其他技术与3D打印结合起来，推动彼此的界限。

这是经常出现在艺术和学术研究，这里的目标是不是一定要生产出商业上可行的一样，因为它是探索新的道路，以查出是否有可以或不可以做。这是由Basia D'阿曼她的工业设计研究的形式在波兰波兹南学院进行研究生项目的情况。

有机会获得一台库卡机器人手臂，她能够3D打印量身定制的部分，使机器织碳纤维涂上树脂。库卡臂可用于几乎任何类型的数字化生产（Basia自己也编程这是一个绘图仪和数控铣床在过去的），甚至作为一个挤出系统5和7轴的三维打印。

在这种情况下，Basia编程它使用蝈蝈经营作为一种先进的“织布机”，是，因此，能够围绕支撑结构的碳结构。由此产生的针都是从所谓的“snutki”波兰传统刺绣的风格，并以此作为对“如何使用技术”的一个例子。引导机器人的方案是灵活的，并产生不同的结果取决于输入点。

她建立在Zortrax3D打印机量身定制的库卡部分。每一部分采取了3-5小时的最大制造和组装到机器人。而这个新的招的可能的应用将需要一些更多的探索，事实本身，这样的项目是可能似乎显著。在桌面3D打印，开发量身定制的组件一个学生项目的上下文中的库卡机器人是不是时间的问题，它只是简单的不可能的。