i have been paying extra attention lately to the gripper arm, there are many guys who use a robot arm like this
but to me its too big, they can get it to open and close and rotate 180, but when returning it back inside R2 it has to remain open in order to be short enough to clear the door.
there was a guy who made resin grippers a long time ago, i would have liked to been able to grab one of those even if it didnt open or close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMN0tSuhzM
the photo moffeaton posted is from the archives, i dont believe thats the screen used gripper, if it is its missing a few pieces and was repainted. as you can see below the claws are clearly silver and the body (hand) is black. this has been haunting me lately because we know there was 2 life form scanners made, maybe there was 2 grippers as well?
you can also see a bunch of detail thats missing, it looks like little horns? to me it looks like on each claw it has 1 on the tip and 2 on the side im guessing the side we see thats not on screen has 2 as well, totaling 10 little horns
i wish someone would 3d print a gripper, you could make this open and close with a spring and a cable, a servo to pull the cable, compressing the spring and closing the claws
i dont have any 3d modeling skills, but i feel this is a R2 item that is greatly over looked and would love to have on my droid