Many of us, electronic engineers, are familiar with, or have at least heard of pick and place machines. For those, who haven't, a pick and place machine is a machine which places small electronic components on a printed circuit board (PCB).
Modern electronic appliances are built around electronic components, connected together with copper traces on a board. These components are soldered onto the copper on the board. About 40 years ago, component placement and soldering of these components was not automated and was done by hand. Fortunate, technology helped a little hand by placing and soldering these components. Nowadays, components are not even 'placed' on a board but 'shot' on it, many times faster than the human eye can follow. Take a look such a machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nah4BQ9y8IY
Now this is not exactly what I have in mind by building my own pick and place machine. I would be happy if my machine is about 100 times slower though. And at first, I don't need my machine to place components on a board but rather place microcontrollers in a programming socket. I will build an automated microcontroller programming machine, to save me some precious time....
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