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Warwick Manufacturing Group

Battery Manufacturing

Battery Manufacturing - Rohin Titmarsh

Meet the Academic

What advice would you give to a young people aspiring to get into a STEM Career?

“Get a good understanding of lots of different career paths. There are so many jobs and routes out there that may interest you.”

To learn more about Rohin and his journey:

Download the transcriptLink opens in a new window

Bringing Science to Life

What is the role of robots in battery manufacturing?

This demo shows a mini Gigafactory! The robots working here are just some examples of the types of jobs robots would in a real Gigafactory, like testing and sorting the hundreds and thousands of individual cells, building those cells into modules and connecting the modules together in the final battery pack that goes into the electric vehicle.

The batteries shown in this demo are small and light, but the ones in real life can weigh between 1000 and 1500 kg! Imagine the size of the robots required to lift, turn and move these! Now consider the thousands of electric vehicles, not just electric cars, that we need to make a year to achieve cleaner transport, and that’s millions of batteries a year. Robots and automation will help us do that by keeping workers safe and doing repetitive jobs. Robots and automation are also really great at tackling jobs that need very fine accuracy, like welding batteries together to get the energy we need to power a car. There are thousands of welds in a battery pack, and these have to be tightly controlled for the battery to perform correctly, so repeatability is key, something robots are much better at.

How to make your own robot arm

Materials required: 

  • Cardboard box 
  • Three straws
  • Scissors  
  • PVA glue  
  • Strings 
  • transparent tape 

The robot arm template can be scaled down depending on hand size. The width of the wrist of the cardboard should be similar to your hand size.  

Step by step instructions: 

1. Download a template of the robot arm.

Template of the robot arm and handle
2. Draw around the template on the cardboard box and use scissors to cut it. 
The template has shaped by using the scissors.
3. Except for the thumb, for each finger, three bends are made with same distance. (For the thumb, two bends are made) 
Ruler is used to band each finger
4. Below the thumb, create a small hole using a pencil.
A small hole is made right under the cardboard thumb
5. Cut the straw into 15 sections of length 1.5cm and 4 longer sections of length 4cm. 
6. By using PVA glue, stick the smaller straws on the fingers and thumb between the bends and stick the 4 bigger pieces of straw onto the palm. Make sure they are all in a straight line. On the back of the hand, stick a small section of straw next to the hole created in step 5.  
Straws are stuck to cardboard finger bands, with PVA glue
7. Use a string and pass those straw holes for each finger. Strings should be in a size of 40 cm. 
8. Once the string has passed through all of the straws, make sure to use transparent tape to stick the string onto each tip of the finger. For the other side of the string, make a ring so that the movements of the finger can be controlled by pulling the rings. For the thumb, the string will need to go through the hole to the other side and through the straw there.
Strings are passing through holes of the straws which are stuck to the cardboard bands
9. If the cardboard is too thin, add one more layer of cardboard to give additional strength (expect the fingers, just from the palm to the handle) 
10. Use the other section of the template and another piece of cardboard to create a handle for the Robot Arm. You may need to adjust the size of the handle to fit your arm.  
cardboard handle is attached to the robot arm
11. Use PVA glue to attach the handle to the Robot Arm. 
12. Play with the Robot arm! Try to see what you can pick up! 
The robot arm is lifting up the plastic cup

To explore this concept further:  

  • Would the use of different types of string and cardboard make robot arm stronger?
  • Program the robot challenge:  

In pairs or groups, choose one person to be the robot and the rest of you will be the programmers. The robot must have their eyes closed for this activity. Draw a grid like the one shown below and choose and start and an end point. Place an object on the start position. The programmers need to give instructions to the robot to pick up the object and move it to the end position. The instructions should be simple to follow and precise.  

Have a go at switching roles and discuss what you have learned from the activity.  

Bringing Science to Life resources were created by interns: Laura Lotkowska and Seorin Park.




Rohin Titmarsh standing in front of his demo robot

Resources to download:

Teacher Resource Pack

Do it at home instructions

Robot Arm Template