The above picture is from the web site of Lynxmotion and shows a hobby/demonstration 5 axis robotic arm kit.

This the kit on my workbench.

I have always been intrigued by computer controlled robots and when, a couple of years ago, I saw a tiny ad in a magazine for a robotics catalog, I started checking out what was available for the hobbyist.

In the above picture, I have begun cutting out the (sturdy) plastic pieces for assembly. The two "shoulder" pieces have already been cut out. The "computer" is the little square thing on the far right, just to the right of the blue object.

The project I had in mind was to control the robotic arm from my PC using input from the joystick.

This was supposed to be a programming project, not a kit building project!

I was initially intimidated by all of the little pieces and assembly instructions, but the kit is well designed and the instructions well written so that I was able to muddle through it.

The above picture shows the assembly at the stage of "aligning" the two shoulder servos. In case a future kit builder is reading this, it is very important that you find two servos that are aligned, as specified in the instructions. It is not hard, just time consuming if you are not lucky. I had to take a time out and snap these pictures.

The above picture shows the beginning of the arm assembly (to the left of the scissors).

Here is another tip for kit builders. The above picture from the Lynxmotion web site, shows the base with one roller bearing installed and two not. When you place the roller assemblies onto the base you have to "super glue" the steel pins to the base. BE CAREFUL DOING THIS. The super glue will "wick" across the steel pins and glue the rollers to the shaft. My suggestion would be to put a tiny bit of glue into the two ends of the trough and then place the assembly into the trough.

Here it is, almost done. I still needed to paint the base and mount the battery pack.

After building the kit it was "trivial" to write the program to control the robot with the joystick.

I had fun during my "show and tell" sessions at work.