No need to invent the wheel again, if someone has done good work before
Automation and robotics have been done for a long time. There are countless cases of automation in industry. Also people have done a lot of mechanics and "automation" in multible Fab Academy projects. Here is an overview of automation work done by other. Also if good automation solutions are found they will be implemented to this project.
Automation of a small scale pcb through hole plating machines are not common. After numerous searches I have not managed to find readily made automation for this scale machine. In large scale industry automation is common. Some example might be taken from industry level automation as at the end the process is the same.