Elephant Robotics Unveils New Desktop Educational Robots for 2023

In recent years, interest in using robots in education has seen massive growth. Projects that involve robotics, artificial intelligence, speech recognition, and related technologies can help develop students’ analytical, creative, and practical skills. However, a major challenge has been the robots themselves: They are typically big, heavy, and costly. For robots to become widely used in education, they need to be smaller, easier to setup and use, and, more important, they need to be affordable to educators and students.

That’s the goal Elephant Robotics aims to achieve with its line of lightweight, smart, and capable robots. The company has launched several desktop collaborative robots over the past few years, including the myCobot, mechArm, and myPalletizer. To help users achieve more applications in education, Elephant Robotics has also launched AI Robot Kit, a robotic kit that integrates multiple functions like vision, positioning grabbing, and automatic sorting modules. This year, the company is unveiling completely improved and upgraded products to make robotics even more accessible in education.

Upgraded Robotic Arms and AI Kits

Schools in different countries and regions have been using Elephant Robotics’ robotic arms and AI Kits as educational tools in recent years. The products’ portability, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness have helped schools integrate robotics as part of their programs and courses. The performance of the products and the wide range of built-in software and features help students learn better about robotics and programming. Using the robotic arms and AI Kit, students can learn about artificial intelligence and applications such as robot vision, object recognition, manipulation, and more.

To help more students experience robots and start learning about robotics and programming at a young age, Elephant Robotics has upgraded its AI Kit to make it more powerful and even easier to use.

Elephant Robotics has upgraded the AI Kit comprehensively, improving the quality of the hardware while optimizing the built-in algorithms and software to make the product more flexible and scalable. Video: Elephant Robotics

In addition to the upgraded AI Kit, Elephant Robotics this year released new robotics and AI education material, starting with a book called “Machine Vision and Robotics.” The book explains the topics of robotic arms and vision sensors, and includes five algorithm courses, plus tutorials on programming languages. Users learn about machine vision in a practical way by experimenting with the AI Kit through a series of examples and applications.

Elephant Robotics also provides users visualization software and customization options to select the built-in algorithms. The software is very friendly for new robotics users who have yet to gain programming experience. AI Kit 2023 uses a camera with higher accuracy and light adjustment for the hardware to make the robotic arm more efficient in object recognition. The suction pump installed at the end of the robotic arm has also been improved, which has higher adaptability and stability when working with different robotic arms.

Elephant Robotics has also upgraded the myCobot product into a new version: myCobot 2023, which features more user-friendly software. myCobot 2023 allows users to use their mobile phone and gamepad to control the robotic arm and accessories, helping to learn and develop remote wireless operations. To improve safety, Elephant Robotics has added algorithms to the robotic arm to prevent it from colliding with other objects while in operation.

ultraArm P340: A New Robot for Education

In 2023, Elephant Robotics is also introducing the ultraArm P340, a high-performance robotic arm designed to meet educational needs. ultraArm uses metal construction to increase the stiffness and its payload capabilities. To provide further stability, the ultraArm P340 also features stepper motors, which improves its speed and provides repeatable positioning accuracy to ±0.1mm.

More AI and Robot Kits for Makers

Elephant Robotics has still more products to announce this year: The company has launched five kits with ultraArm that provide additional applications for the education field. The Vision educational kits include the Vision & Picking Kit, Vision & Conveyor Belt Kit, and Vision & Slide Rail Kit. These kits help users learn about machine vision and experiment with industrial-like applications such as dynamic and static intelligent recognition and grasping.

There are two kits in the DIY series: the Drawing Kit and Laser Engraving Kit. This series helps makers achieve high quality reproduction of drawings and laser engraving applications, developing users’ creativity and imagination. To help users quickly achieve DIY production, Elephant Robotics created software called Elephant Luban. It is a platform that generates the G-Code track and provides primary cases for users. Users can select multiple functions, such as drawing and laser engraving, with just a few clicks.

Combined with different robotics kits, the ultraArm is an excellent and affordable option for many educational applications. These kits offer students the possibility of learning and experimenting with advanced, complex robotics and AI tools that are fun and easy to use.

And this has long been one of Elephant Robotics‘s main goals: creating innovative products that are specifically designed to provide students with hands-on experience and promote STEM education. The company is committed to keep pursuing that goal by continuing to research and contribute to the development of even better educational robots in the future.

​IEEE Spectrum