SCARA Robot

As part of a 4th year Mechatronics course, I worked in a team to design, build, and program a SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm) robot capable of autonomously picking parts from a hopper and placing them onto a simulated production line conveyor within a 500 × 500 mm workspace. The mechanical assembly was built using a provided CAD model as a reference, driven by three NEMA 17 stepper motors with A4988 drivers and GT2 belt transmission. AS5600 magnetic rotary encoders were integrated into closed-loop feedback control to achieve accurate and repeatable joint positioning. An Arduino Uno was programmed to implement inverse kinematics, coordinate the joint movements, and manage the pick-and-place sequence. The project was delivered in two phases — first prototyping and validating individual mechanical, electrical, and software subsystems, then fully integrating them into a working robot demonstrated to assessors. The project developed hands-on skills in mechatronic system integration, embedded C programming, PCB design, and sensor-based feedback control.