This week was all about overcoming challenges. We finalized the pre-fabricated cart that we will use for the base of our structure. That cart is not perfect due to our budget constraints and will need some modifications such as removing the upper cage and creating attachments for the vertical T-slot beams. Additionally, the original plan to 3D print many gantry parts was changed due to budget constraints. The team opted to go for laser cut parts instead which took longer than it should have to get cut due to many attempts on a faulty laser cutter.
In more positive news, all of the parts for the motors (power supply, steppers, etc) have arrived and code has started being written. We hope to have the motors functional for the gantry system when it is built, which hopefully this week. This would allow us to focus on the pathing and conversion scripts. Our plan for the interim demo is to showcase the fully working gantry system with some standalone horizontal and vertical movement and begin integration after.
Other than finalizing the cart, there are no large design changes this week. We are a little behind our schedule, but if the gantry is able to come online this upcoming week, we think we are still in a decent spot to have our goal for the interim demo achieved.