Logan Status Report 3/27

This week JP and I modeled and fabricated the external housing for the robot in TechSpark. It took a little bit longer than we expected to get familiar with the laser cutter and we ended up making a few small mistakes but came out of it with all 6 sides cut, including the mount on the rear for the tablet. As far as electronics, the stepper motor and the drivers arrived on Thursday. I am still awaiting the DC motor delivery however. I was able to begin soldering the control board for the stepper motor and put together a test setup with my Arduino and the motor along with some example code to check everything is working. I did make a small mistake soldering though, and will have to correct it in TechSpark on Sunday because I don’t have a desoldering tool. The board works though: a small LED in the corner glows when I turn the motor.

Stepper Motor with control board:

I also made a lot of progress on the 3D model and assembly. After the DC motor gets here and I can get the dimensions on that I can add that to the upper mount and get it printed. The launcher is likely the only thing we will print, the outer circle we can just cut out of acrylic and the bottom we can do the same. Pictured is the main launcher assembly where the balls will roll in and be launched by the motor spinning at the bottom.

My biggest blocker right now is still not having the DC motor. I’ve been waiting over a week for that part now and I’m wondering if the best option would be to just drive to a hardware store to buy one temporarily or check if there is one in inventory I can use.