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https://github.com/adamb314/ServoProject
^Modifying cheap servos so that a robot arm can repeatedly insert a pencil lead. It's a lot of work though.
Most interesting application though fall out of the scope of old-fashioned robotic arms, i.e. when you need to sense the real world in a non controlled context. For instance to develop a robot that can trim wilted flowers, you'll need to measure the real world, and as soon as you do that, you can just sense your robot arm too, no need for fancy, ultra-precise actuators.
Look at this BOM: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_3yhWjodSNNYlpxkRCPIlvIA...
Do you really need the $6,129.95 & $3,549.95 robot arms for the kind of application described ? I doubt it. I'm not a robotician, and would love some feeback on this idea.
That's it, isn't it. The question is not, how far away from that are we, but when can you and I actually afford it? Because, as the other commenter snarkily replies, human maid's already exist. The lifestyle of the singularity is already here for the rich. It's trickling down that kind of lifestyle to the rest of us that AI robots will enable. (with some amount of social upheaval.)
Lets say the robot that can do that comes out next year for $15 million. Could you afford one? I certainly can't. So pretend that it does, what changes for you and I? Nothing. So the robots that can do that won't be used as robot maids until the price comes down. Which; it will. Open source robotics and model-available AI will force things to be affordable sooner, rather than later, because we'd all like a robot to do that for us.
The industrial versions will be used to do hideously dangerous things. underwater welding, chainsaw helicoptering, manual nuclear reactor rod removal. We already use machines for a lot of those difficult/impossible tasks, it's just a matter of programming the robots.
Which takes us back to today. How far away from that are we? The pieces are already here. Between https://ok-robot.github.io/ and https://mobile-aloha.github.io/ the building blocks are here. It's just a matter of time before someone puts the existing pieces together to make said robot, the only question is who will be first to make it, who will be first to open source it. Who will make it not just possible, but affordable?
I’m very happy with the mechanical design for my four axis brushless motor powered robot arm with integrated 3D printed planetary gearboxes, but I really need to revive the work and document it. For the last few years I’ve been working on my own brushless motor controller design and I think this year I will have that stable enough to go back to working on this arm.
https://github.com/tlalexander/brushless_robot_arm
https://github.com/Twisted-Fields/rp2040-motor-controller
Bellabot[0] comes to mind, there's also a startup doing Roomba-like bot that magnetically dock to specially designed shelves. Though, they don't sell for $250, so actual Roombas and ROS mods for "hoverboard" Segway clones[3] might be more cost effective.
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1hQ5YTMJEw
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdVglHOJgiA
2: https://github.com/hoverboard-robotics/hoverboard-driver/tre...
I happen to use a few of their cameras, and they generally work as advertised (satisfied Kickstarter backer for OAK D and OAK D lite, probably going to buy the OAK D pro at some point). But, while I did indeed pay less than 250 for them individually, their current active depth offerings are $350(and while my oak d is fine for my lit, varied environment, I do often wish it was a little more accurate). I thought the Lite was also around $200 but it's actually $150 as you said. It's a pretty good little platform for the price. Be sure to check out the experimental repo too : https://github.com/luxonis/depthai-experiments/tree/master/
Bought a Sainsmart robot arm because it was cheap and has 6 degrees of freedom. I don't use it for anything serious though. It was just to practice some robotic programming. https://github.com/wedesoft/arduino-sainsmart