Posted on

Josiah’s Status Report for 10/19

Accomplishments

In the week before fall break, our team completed the design review report. I put in substantial work into the following sections: Abstract, II. Use-Case Requirements, IV. Design Requirements, V-E. Design Trade Studies (Robotics), VI-D. System Implementation (Subsystem – XY Robot), and VII. Test, Verification and Validation. I also oversaw editing and revision for a number of sections I didn’t directly write for. 

Progress

Being one of the final major housekeeping tasks, we’re off to the races after having completed the report. Ordered parts will have arrived once we return from fall break, and I plan on construction immediately of the robotics subsystem. Besides the assembly of the robot, I intend to 3D print the remaining components that have already been designed, and design up the custom cup-holding mount which will be compatible with the original design in an Autocad software. Progress is on schedule.

Posted on

Team Status Report for 10/5

This week we had our design review presentations, and were presenting as well as giving feedback. It was nice to be able to see the progression of everyone’s projects, and we took note of good things that other teams did, such as having very specific risk mitigation plans per use case requirement and being very detailed in scheduling and project management. 

Besides the presentations and feedback, we started to split off into each of our own sections and continued work for that. For Gordon’s KRIA portion, a few parts ordered from last week arrived, and work was done to verify that they connected and worked well. Research was done to confirm more about exactly how each part would be used, confirming details with Varun as well. Extensively searched around HH 1300 wing for a previously existing display port to display port cable, but couldn’t find it and a new one was ordered. Unfortunately couldn’t do the desired testing due to the missing part, opted to do more research into how setup would work and what can be done as soon as the part arrives. 

The camera also arrived so Jimmy was able to get the DepthAI python API set up and running with a simple object detection model. Jimmy was also able to get the custom ball detection model running on the webcam. One risk that arose as part of experimenting with the camera was that the object detection model may not be able to track the ball fast enough with the simple object detection model that was used. However, we are training a better model specifically to detect ping pong balls, and can also use a higher contrast colours between the ping pong ball (bright orange) and the background (solid white or black colour). There also may be promising results once the model is loaded onto the camera rather than experimenting with a laptop webcam.

Regarding the physical portion of this project, Josiah created and completed a team Bill of Materials document, and placed an order for the majority of the components necessary to begin construction of the XY robot. A few parts will need to be 3D printed, but the STL files are readily available for download, which will expedite the process. These components should arrive quickly, being ordered over Amazon Prime, and so construction should begin swiftly. Porting over the controls from the Arduino to the KRIA may prove tricky, as the design calls for a CNC shield over the arduino for stepper motor control. I will need to look into whether the KRIA supports CNC-esque controls, and if not, a proper communication protocol between the devices, such as UART. Realistically, only a single packet of data will need to be sent at a time: the location the robot must move to (aka, projected landing location of the ball).

Posted on

Josiah’s Status Report for 10/5

Accomplishments

This week saw the conclusion of the design review presentations and reviews, and I’m happy with how our project is shaping up. Alongside the completion of the design review presentation, I created our team’s Bill of Materials in a Google Sheet, and populated my page with the materials required for the XY robot. I put in an order form for the majority of the materials, and will look into 3D printing parts to house the robot provided in the Autodesk Instructable guide.

As I become more familiar with the design, the more I expect that having the KRIA take the place of the Arduino may prove difficult. In this case, UART would be a good communication protocol between the two devices–we’d only actually need to send the landing coordinates to the Arduino to handle motor controls. In other words, just one piece of data.

Progress

This next week, I hope to have the materials arrive and begin construction of the actual robot. I’ll need to do a bit of 3D printing, but the models are already available for download so this shouldn’t take long. Additionally, I’ll be working on helping to complete the design review report, due October 11th.

Posted on

Josiah’s Status Report for 9/28

Accomplishments

This week I ran some preliminary real-world tests to determine whether basic projectile motion equations could accurately predict where a ping pong ball would land, given two very close time frames and positions. These tests were ran using our smartphones, slow-mo recording (240fps), a whiteboard gridded out with a marker for translating the ball’s position in the video to position in real life. We restricted the axes to only x and y, tossing the ball parallel to the whiteboard. While my calculations turned out to be off by 10s of centimeters, by adapting to a python algorithm that takes air resistance into account, that error came down to less than 7cm. An important takeaway is that because the timeframe between ball frames is so low, getting accurate ball positions is CRITICAL. A difference of a centimeter can make a massive difference in computed initial velocities.

Progress

Besides the testing, I whipped up a spreadsheet for our bill of materials for the project, and added the materials required for the xy-plotting gantry. The total cost came to around ~$150, and could come down further if there are materials already at CMU we can take advantage of.

Posted on

Josiah’s Status Report for 9/21

Accomplishments

This week, we completed our proposal presentation. For the purposes of the presentation, I came up with a number of strict and granular tests that range from unit tests of individual components to cumulative tests that are concerned with the entire system. I also beautified our website to give it a bit of cup pong flair. The emojis also help us stand out B)

 

Progress

I made great progress on the topics of viable robotics solutions for moving our cup to the landing location of the ball. There are a number of online guides that detail hobbyist-tier XY plotter drawing machines, or omniwheel drawing robots. I believe these existing guides can be repurposed for the simpler task of moving a robot to a specific location. I dug into the arduino code for the omniwheel robot, and there is existing infrastructure that would easily support our purposes. Next week, I hope to decide on one method to start with, and then order the materials necessary for construction of the robot. I believe progress is on track.

Posted on

Introduction and Project Summary

Have you ever tried for a cup pong shot, only for the ball to bounce off the rim and skitter into the darkest, most inaccessible recesses of your living room? No longer! Splash is a computer vision-assisted robot that will aid individuals practicing their cup pong shots. Splash will track thrown ping pong balls and move the target cup to the ball’s projected landing location. We hope that our robot will be able to correct for inaccurate shots within a ~10cm radius of the cup as well as doing so within a typical ball flight time of ~1.0 seconds. Our mechanism will be comprised of a cup-moving robot (omnidirectional wheels OR cartesian gantry), a Kria board that runs the CV algorithms, and a depth camera for determining the ball’s position in the real world.