[KenWittlief]

it might help if you think through the applications you want to use it for.

One idea, a few years back the team I was on purchased our own button machine. It was hand operated and there were several steps involved to make one button.

A couple of mentors were kicking around the idea of automating it for a summer / fall student project - either using pnuematics to drive the levers, or making a pick and place 'robot' to feed the materials into it.

I always have a problem designing generic stuff "generic computers, generic robots...." but if you tell me what you want the system to do then everything falls into place for me and I can proceed with a logical plan /approach. Thats why I recommend you approach this project in the same manner.

Theres lots of creative things you could do with a robot arm - teach it to play the piano, or a classical guitar, design one to airbrush designs onto tee shirts - design one to open your mail and feed the contents directly into a paper shredder (I need one of those!) If you know what you want it to do, then you can design it accordingly. Designing a generic robot arm that can do 'anything' is open ended - it will drive you insane trying to define the design.