Be Curious 2022: AprilTag control of a PincherX robot arm
Families at the University of Leeds' Be Curious day steered a PincherX robot arm with an AprilTag paddle and a webcam, through a sweet-powered pick-and-place task.
As part of the University of Leeds’ annual public engagement event Be Curious, we formed a team of PGRs to bring a hands-on robotics experience to families in the Leeds area. The focus was on robot sensing and human robot collaboration - as part of this, we used a couple of Turtlebots as a demo of some SLAM techniques, and I took on the programming of a PincherX robot arm which was mounted on a table.
Using a cheap webcam and monitor, along with a custom printed paddle which has an Apriltag on either side, it was possible to direct the robot arm through a series of preprogrammed motions. The dual Apriltags allowed for open/closed control of the gripper, and through this hordes of children and parents managed to successfully control the arm through a (sweety driven!) pick and place task, purely using vision control.
See the video here of the control method here:
PincherX Apriltag control demo
The control is a little clunky (I put it down to only giving myself a day!) but did the trick. Send me a message if you’re interested in seeing the code.