This week our team has settled back into our respective homes and had more time to explore the adjustments to our project after switching to remote. Claire and I (Maxine) worked on Fusion360. We both started with basic tutorials to learn the fundamentals of the software. The current goal is to do our best to simulate the implementation plan we had previously. We thought about switching to a robotic arm since there are more online resources on how to build…
After settling back in Hong Kong with my 14 day quarantine, I had some time to do a more in-depth exploration of Fusion360. I followed several tutorials and started to get the hang of Fusion360’s fundamentals. Claire and I had a discussion whether we should switch to simulating a robotic arm instead of the gantry approach for a few reasons. The gantry approach was what we were going to do in implementation before the virus hit. We were familiar with…
This week has been spent planning and rescoping our project under these new working circumstances. Originally, I was responsible for most of the mechanical part assembly, but obviously this is now not possible since we won’t have access to Techspark and Claire and I will be working from the other side of the world. We spent this week exploring the different CAD simulation software we could use to simulate the design of our mechanical system. I looked into Solidworks, I…
We were informed that the gantry actually arrived a few weeks ago but was never put in the system, but at least now we know when to verify when parts arrive. Before spring break, I spent the week customizing our parts and making any necessary adjustments to fit the gantry better. I also printed more parts for the remainder of the assembly, and went to get the nuts and bolts needed for assembly. Everything should be all ready to go…
Arka set up the RPi SSH capabilities and the camera pipeline. He tested and timed the object detection code on the RPi and started working on the resistor classification portion for CV. Claire set up the stepper motors controlled with the Arduino. There is more documentation on how to use these motor drivers with an Arduino than an RPi and the code is easier, so she is using this as a starting point to learn how to control the motors….
This past week I focused on manufacturing the parts needed for the XY gantry and researching what parts to use for our Z-axis. I 3D printed the mounts but our rails still have not arrived yet so I could not move onto assembly like I planned to. We have decided to use an off-the-shelf part for our Z-axis to minimize the risk and time it would take to test a 3D printed rack-and-pinion part. We have also set up the…
This week our team has been focused on parts setup and finalizing design plans, and preparing for our design review presentation. Arka has finalized the CV algorithm for object detection. He has been testing with images of breadboards and using those to tune the object detection algorithm. He has also been having some trouble setting up the RasPi on the CMU wifi, but will continue to look into it this weekend. Claire has been researching on the theory and power…
After the research and planning we did last week, we put in the order for XY rails with the dimensions that would work with our project. I also spent the week finalizing the 3D printed components that we would need to mount our rails to our chassis, and mount the timing belt and servos. I printed the parts on Thursday night in Techspark, so hopefully when the rails arrive on Monday I will have all the parts ready to start…
This week our group has been focused on researching solution approaches to the two main components of our project: the robotic claw and the computer vision algorithm. We have also checked out some parts out of the 18500 inventory for some preliminary testing. Arka has started looking at image processing and deep learning techniques for the object detection part. He will first experiment with the openCV library’s image processing functions to see if they are accurate enough for our use…
This week I focused on researching different solution approaches for our robotic claw with Claire. In particular, we looked at some DIY claw machine projects powered by Arduinos and found them promising. We will be using stepper motors and an x-y gantry for the positioning of the claw. However, the up-down motion of these projects mostly used a pulley system that looks more flimsy than what we want, so we are now researching a different approach for that particular axis…