Excavator Tilt Rotator

A compact attachment for a scaled excavator

At MIT's The 77 Lab, I helped design and build an electrically actuated tilt rotator for a 1/12-scale excavator. It lets the bucket tilt and rotate, supporting research into teleoperation and operator training.

From Onshape to a working mechanism

I designed the project in Onshape and 3D printed the main housing components using Bambu Lab printers and slicers. The machined metal parts were made in MITERS at MIT.

I selected the gears and hardware based on the torque they needed to handle, along with efficiency, size, and cost.

See the tilt rotator in action

Read the research

Both papers were presented at the 2026 IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference (URTC). Scroll within each preview to browse; use the links below to open or download the full paper.

Development & integration

Photos of the tilt rotator, excavator integration, and development process.