Cove: 7DOF Industrial Robotic Arm

A custom 3 foot robotic arm that autonomously prepares matcha using an electromagnetic end effector, demonstrating rapid end-to-end development of an industrial human-interactive manipulation platform.

The problem

Building an industrial robotic arm from scratch requires coordinating mechanical, electrical, and software systems simultaneously while making hundreds of engineering decisions before any hardware exists. As a student organization, we also needed to organize a multidisciplinary team around a single technical vision.

What I built

As Director of Technology of Terra Labs and project manager for Cove, I led the end-to-end development of the arm, defining the technical roadmap, coordinating mechanical, electrical, and software teams, and keeping the project on schedule. On the mechanical side, I designed structural components using analytical stress calculations and design-for-manufacturing principles, iterating through rapid 3D printed prototypes before machining the final aluminum assembly. The result was a modular architecture designed to be reused for future robotics platforms.

Outcome

The project culminated in a fully assembled 7DOF robotic arm capable of autonomous manipulation, presented at Terra Labs Demo Day with over 200+ attendees. The project demonstrated my ability to lead multidisciplinary engineering efforts while making technical decisions under uncertainty and shipping complex hardware on aggressive timelines.