Hello!

Welcome to my project. Here I want to spend a brief moment to outline some of the project goals, and describe a few of the meta parameters that I'm working with.

This robotic arm is entirely (well, almost entirely) designed with SolidWorks and is my foray into complex mechanical part design. I have been creating 3d printable things for many years, but some of the nuances of moving parts have eluded me.

So far, some of the skills I have learned as a result of this Robotic Arm project include:

• Gearbox design and how to distance everything
• How to affix a shaft to a bearing
• How to press-fit a bearing into a 3d printed part (and what a reasonable tolerance for such an activity looks like)
• Common interfaces and captive-nut designs for connecting parts together
• Using fillet makes things look instantly cooler
• Introductory SolidWorks

I'm sure there are even more takeaways, which I shall reflect on in the future. 

A secondary (but equally important) goal is to improve my own ability to be an effective communicator. In the spirit of that goal, I will be creating more videos and documenting a finer grain of my project than I traditionally have. That being said, I am getting a late start. So I will be speed running the first few log posts.

As far as functionality goes, I am not expecting this machine to be particularly useful "in the field". It's intended life purpose is to employ advanced mathematics which enable smooth path-following and route finding to, um, point a camera phone in a specific direction. It's... it's a gimbal. But a very precise gimbal.

This is an exciting project for me and I hope to share the interesting journey both past and future.