Make and Control a Servo Arm with Your Computer

Computer-controlled servos enable industrial robots to manufacture everything from vehicles to smartphones. For this maker challenge, students work through the engineering design process as they control a simple servo arm by sending commands with their computers to Arduinos using the serial communication protocol. This exercise walks students through the (sometimes) unintuitive nuances of this protocol, so by the end they can directly control the servo position with the computer. Once students master the serial protocol, they are ready to build some suggested interactive projects using the computer or “cut the cord” and get started with wireless Bluetooth or XBee communication.