This gripper is a post prototyping study in relation to the cubesolver. The steppermotor on the left drives the satellite to rotate the gripper and the steppermotor on the right drives the gripper itself. During a rotational operation of the satellite, the gripper is either closed or open. Evidently in this case both motors are running!

Whilst the satellite of the cubesolver still houses a steppermotor, in this prototype the motor has been outplaced towards the satellite. Therefore the satellite is much more lighter and due to the inertia of the object it is suggested, that this should result in a faster rotational speed of the satellite. Yet this must be studied more extensively to be proven.

On of the most important advantages of this prototype is, that the satellite can rotate in an endless sequence of one direction without any limitation, whilst the gripper of the cubesolver is limited in it's rotation to 360 degrees, due to the wiring. This could be solved by means of 2 contactdiscs, incorporating all the sliding contactpoints, but this indicates a rather complex engineering, apart from the reliability of the electrical circuit itself.

The wooden box houses all the electrical equipment: 18V powersupply for the motordrivers, a 9V powersupply for the Arduino microcontroller, two motordrivers and an Arduino MEGA microcontroller shield. The programming language was done in C.