Acquiring the technical knowhow to use Kuka arms

[jaydenrre]

Hi all,

I am looking for some guidance on how to start my journey with Kuka arms.
I am an industrial designer, lead of digital manufacturing at my company (we are an art fabrication company), I have experience with 3 and 5 axis CNC machines, and I am quite proficient with Rhino and Grasshopper.

In looking to expand my toolset and knowledge I have been itching to work with a Kuka Arm.

My end goal is to be able to have the knowhow to add a robot arm to my digital manufacturing arsenal.
With my experience with multi axis CNC machines and my Rhino GH knowhow, I am confident I can generate and output a working program.
My question is, how can i learn more about the technical aspects of the robot arms, particularly when my intention is use in digital manufacturing?

My question to the community is:  how ought I start down this road?
Training at a Kuka college the way to go? Are there other training resources outhere that offer short focused courses on these machines?
(I am based in San Francisco)

Thanks!

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

From a CNC point of view it definitely won't be a problem to get started with a KUKA arm, though you may run into problems like file-size limitations down the road.
As you wrote, the challenge is the handling of the robot - but for standard milling processes, that by itself won't be too bad.

The basic KUKA courses are good at giving you a broad overview of robot handling and safety, but don't go into the specifics. At the same time, getting a milling robot started doesn't require too many steps, mostly the calibration of tool and base which can be learned within an hour. It gets more complicated once you set up your own custom processes, connect devices via fieldbuses etc., but the start is not that hard, in my opinion.

Ideally you could tag along with someone for a day or two to get some hands-on experience. We do this sometimes, but are far away of San Francisco unfortunately.
We are working on an online platform, but it's also not there yet.

If you want to, send me an eMail and I can brainstorm some people in the area. But I'd rather not post contact information here publicly.

Best,
Johannes