Hi Annin Robotics community! I want to start this build log off by giving a great big thank you to @Chris Annin for designing this machine, releasing it under open source and then dealing with all of our nudgery as a result of said release. I've been following the AR2 development since may of 2017 and I really think that it is the first 6DOF arm out in the market space that addresses the "robotics for all" mantra correctly. It balances this knife edge of economy / quality through good design. I also really like this community so far.

A bit of background on where this build started .......

Several months ago a young friend of mine Julian decided to build an AR2 for his school project, and then asked me to sign off as a mentor. I had been wanting to build an AR2, and now I have my chance to live vicariously through Julian and possibly participate meaningfully in the newly forming community. Thanks to everyone who has been replying to our emails and comments lately, and a super big thanks to Julian for taking on our dream build like a champion.

Julian and I also follow the Niryo one, the "sixirobot" from marginally clever, and the Edo arm (which are also taking off). We hope one day that all of the communities will combine / cross collaborate and eventually merge their open source material in an effort to really compete with industry standard robotics such as Fanuc, Kuka and ABB. This could fundamentally change the world and bring opportunity back to working class folks who don't have millions to jump into competitive production / automation.

Here we are just a few weeks after the beginning of #JuliansAR2 build ........