From Arduino prototypes to ROS 2 control and industrial PLC integration. Hands-on tutorials, hardware comparisons based on manufacturer documentation, and buying guidance for engineers, makers, and students in the USA and Canada.
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Six practical tutorials that anchor this site — design and wire a robot arm with Arduino, control it with ROS 2, and integrate it into an industrial PLC workflow.
How to read this site: Robotics Engineering Lab is an independent editorial project about robot arms and classroom robotics. The Arduino, sensor, wiring and kinematics guides are built and tested in the classroom, with worked examples, real photos and code you can reproduce. A few pages cover industrial concepts (safety standards, PLCs, calibration) from official documentation rather than a bench test, and each one says so at the top.
Numbers come from manufacturer documentation, standards bodies (ANSI, CSA, ISO) or a calculation shown on the page. If a figure is wrong or outdated, send a correction.
Wiring, PWM explained, three tested sketches and fixes for jitter and brown-out — photographed and tested in the classroom.
The real three-stage progression used in class — from a first LED blink to a Bluetooth voice-controlled car, with student lab photos and the pin-conflict bug every class hits.
How four semesters of classroom robot cars evolved, each version fixing what broke in the last — six real photos, three sketches and honest failure notes.
A real starter kit unpacked and photographed in class — every component identified, what to skip as a beginner, and three first projects with working code.
What the two trimpots and the H/L jumper actually change, the 3.3V output margin problem on 5V boards, and a troubleshooting table for false triggers — with real module photos.
A real, built-and-tested Arduino car with an HC-SR04 sensor, motor driver and Bluetooth control — actual wiring, actual sketch, and the two bugs we found running it.
A real breadboard build: a 40-line sketch that lights an LED when something gets within 20 cm, with real photos and the Serial Monitor output explained.
Design, wire, and program a six-degree-of-freedom robot arm using an Arduino Mega, a PCA9685 servo driver, and inverse kinematics.
Configure ros2_control hardware interfaces and controller managers to drive a real or simulated robot arm from ROS 2.
Run a real ROS 2 node on an ESP32 through the XRCE-DDS agent, with wiring, agent setup, commissioning checkpoints, and message-rate budgets.
A symptom-to-cause method that separates electrical, software, mechanical and safety faults, with test points, pass criteria and escalation rules.
Size stepper joints by gravity torque, torque-speed curves, reflected inertia, microstepping limits, driver current and the closed-loop decision.
A commissioning method for robot-camera calibration: pose sets with real rotation diversity, OpenCV AX=XB solvers, residual checks and a touch test.
Step-by-step least-squares sphere fitting math, 6-point orientation alignment, residual error diagnostics, and ISO 9283 verification.
Budget stall current, inrush and brownout, then wire and commission a DC supply with worked examples and checkpoints.
Compare AR4, Dobot, Niryo Ned2 and UFACTORY xArm by budget, payload, ROS support and classroom safety in a constraint-based guide.
A sample of guides across topics — from inverse kinematics theory to industrial safety compliance and hardware comparisons.
Analytical solutions, Euler angles, and worked Arduino and ROS 2 code examples for solving 6-DOF inverse kinematics.
Add workpiece, gripper and dynamic factor in the browser before you trust a catalogue payload number.
A practical framework for estimating payback period and total cost of ownership before buying a robot arm.
Jaw geometry, actuation methods, and material choices for designing a reliable robot arm gripper.
Every guide published so far, grouped into practical categories so you can jump straight to what you need.
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