In my mechatronics course, I engineered a remote manipulation device with two degrees of freedom. A remote manipulation device consists of two identical mechanical parts: a sensing device and an actuation device. When the sensing device is moved by the operator, the actuation device is moved to an identical position. These mechanisms have application in animatronics, medical devices, and many other fields.
In my remote manipulation device, potentiometers track the motion of the pieces on the sensing side, and gear motors to move the pieces on the actuation side. The motors are connected to potentiometers so that their positions can be tracked, giving them functionality similar to that of servomotors. The positions of the potentiometers on the sensing side are transmitted to the actuation side through a Teensy 2.0 microcontroller, and the motors are set to the correct position through a PI controller.