ESP32 Future Board Control Claw Crane

We attended a lot of exhibitions last year, so we made a claw crane to attract people! And it works really well, people, especially kids, all come to our exhibition table to get toys.

We forgot to take photos when we were making it so we can only get some snapshots from some video clips... so we are not able to make a step-by-step tutorial, but here we share some important points to make a claw crane, hope you like it and feel inspired!

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Hardware:

Aluminum Profile

3D Printed Parts

Metal Connector

LEGO bricks

Plank

Wood Stick

Bearing

Future Board

Sugar Joyfrog Module

Sugar button module *2

TT Motor

9g Servo

Robotbit Edu

DuPont Extension

Toys

Transparent Protective Film

Software:

Kittenblock

Tool:

Screw Driver

Utility Knife

Stickers

Pliers

The metal framework is assembled by black European standard 2020 aluminum profile, and the size is 45*45*55cm.

(Sorry, the main subject of this snapshot is the trash can... But you can still see the metal framework right?)

Three planks are the same size of 45*60cm, and they are carved because then kids can look through the machine and see all the toys and how the claw works.

We use rubber bands for belt drive because the rubber band would slide when the gantry carriage goes to the end so that it can be protected from misoperation.

The claw is driven by the blue 9g servo. The gears mesh together to make the claw open and close.

The up and down of the claw is controlled by the releasing and pulling of the string.

Fix Robotbit Edu on the control board first, then put the buttons and joystick modules on it, finally plug the Future board in the Robotbit Edu.

The thickness of the transparent protective film is 3mm. We stick them to the plank with the 3M stickers so that people can see through the crane claw but they cannot get a toy out directly.

The DuPont extensions are long, so we need to bind them to prevent them from interfering the operation of the claw.

Follow steps 1 to 4 in the figures to open connect Future board to Kittenblock.

Step 5: turn Kittenblock into the python coding mode.

Step 6: download the .py file below first, then click the "load" in the dropdown list to load the program.

Step 7: Upload the program to Future board.

Connect the Joystick module to the I2C of Robotbit.

One button to P1, and the other one to P2.