Author: zabdi

This week the majority of the time I worked on the project was spent on testing the system to ensure it met the specifications stated in our use case requirements. This involved testing the z-axis reading dimension accuracy, room dimension accuracy, furniture positioning accuracy, and end-to-end latency. I also worked on finding a new stepper motor to move our platform up, as the newest one we purchased moved a bit slower than we desired. The way I set up the system it should be a simple replacement when it comes in. We are on schedule and next week I will spend preparing for the final demo and working on the final report document.

I was able to finish up implementing all of the subsystems to the new guide rail system for lifting the RPLiDAR including the stepper motor with threaded rod and tilt mechanism to obtain a more in-depth scan of the room. I then integrated all of the subsystems to make up the final product. We were able to test the functionality of the system which worked mostly to our expectation. I spent this week tweaking the subsystems to improve stability, mainly by restricting the tilt of the scanner to stay on the y-axis alone and switching the motor out to one with better torque. This week I will work on testing the final result as well as work on the deliverables for the coming week. I am on track according to what we wanted to have done by this time.

A lot of the work needed to implement my part of the project was rooted in knowledge from MechE. Luckily, I got quite a bit of the knowledge from taking classes in IDeATe, such as laser cutting and other general woodworking. This, alongside extensive research and videos, allowed me to build the first implementation of a lifting mechanism, the scissor lift. This didn’t go as planned, since I failed to consider things such as friction as the scissor arms slid across the base and the effect of the weight on the motor. I abandoned this idea in favor of a more sturdy approach involving guide rails. I spoke with a professor, watched videos, and read information online to help better my understanding and account for factors I initially wasn’t considering. Through the development of this system, I feel I picked up knowledge on a lot of little things regarding woodworking, general assembly, use and applications of a variety of components (tee nuts, bearings, dowels, random orbital sanders, etc) as well as a lot of factors that affect the structure, reliability and sturdiness of buildings.

This week I worked mainly on improving the lifting mechanism. The pulley system was not very stable and adding a tilt mechanism with different-length strings would be very unreliable. Therefore, I worked on building a guide rail system for the scanner, using a counterweight system to eliminate the issue of weight. I also worked on implementing a tilt mechanism so we can get more scans and not be limited to the x-y plane. Next week I plan to finalize both of these components so we start reliably testing for our metrics. This adjustment has put me a bit behind schedule but I will be working extra this week, using the time off with carnival. In terms of verification, I will be comparing the readings from the distance sensor and the true height to ensure that they match. I will also be stress-testing the entire lift mechanism to ensure its sturdiness through repeated deployment.

I spent the first half of the week finalizing the build for the scissor lift, but as I was testing it, I noticed that the weight of the load was too much to allow for the lift to reliably lift the load the distance we wanted. So, I spent the latter half of the week working on implementing the backup plan, a pulley system that would pull the RPLidar up. Other than this hiccup, we are on schedule. Next week, after discussing with the team which method we want to use, I will either tune the scissor lift or improve the design of the pulley system.

This week I was able to get the components to the scissor lift laser cut and get some of the arms linked together. I also worked on moving the code to generate the point cloud from the scan onto a Raspberry Pi, so that there wouldn’t need to be a connection between the scanner and our computer. This week was more focused on setting up a baseline for what we would be able to showcase at the demo next week, so this week I will focus on working with my team to integrate the other parts of the project ahead of the demo. The project is on schedule.

I was able to get the electric components of the scissor lift mechanism working with the Raspberry Pi. There have been some issues preventing me from being able to get the wood necessary to start building the arms, so I focused on getting the electrical systems; namely the linear stepper motor and distance sensor. I need to build out the mechanical component to know what to set the limits of the stepper motor to.  Therefore, my aim next week is to get the wood to cut and assemble the lift and have it working. Due to the unexpected setback, I am a little behind where I would like to have been, but I plan on making the time up this week once the order arrives.

I spent the majority of the week working on the scissor lift. I was able to build a prototype that worked. As we wanted the actual height to be a bit higher, I reviewed the design to accommodate this. I also looked at other potential design choices to improve the stability, such as changing out the lift platform and changing the number of scissor components used. The lift needs to be able to be controlled, so we chose to use a linear stepper motor to do this. Next week I hope to build out the final scissor lift and implement a reasonable system to incorporate the linear stepper motor. I do feel as though I’m on schedule.

This week was spent working through some of the final design choices for the stand. We have chosen to continue with the scissor lift, as the rotating mount proves to complicate the calculation (and we have been able to process a slice of a room from the scanner and generate a 3d rendering of it). Therefore, I have been looking for ways to build this, speaking with people from robotics and MechE. I have been told laser cutting the lift would be best, so I made a file ready to be printed and then assembled. I have also worked on getting the Raspberry Pi to work for our project. I feel overall we are on schedule, but I might need to put in extra work during spring break regarding the lift. I hope to have tested the laser-cut scissor lift by next week so I can modify and upgrade the design if needed.

I spent the first portion of this week researching the modules and applications we would use to build the project. I followed a pipeline we agreed to during one of our meetings.

I was able to find libraries (PyVsta and ThreeJS) to help go from the 3d mapper module to the interactive rendering in the web application. Once we showed these systems would work, I shifted my focus to researching a mechanism to lift the stand of the scanner. We may decide to shift to another system that doesn’t involve lifting the scanner, saving costs. We are on track according to our schedule. By next week I hope to start implementing the mechanism to move the scanner as well as the implementation of creating the 3d mesh from the gathered data from the scanner.

I spent the majority of the week researching ways to implement a remote-controlled mounting system for our camera and sensor. However, with the presentation feedback, my team and I have decided to pivot from that and go towards a simpler stand that can be vertically adjusted. This will be sufficient to get a scan of the room to be able to render it on a web application. I feel I am on schedule, as this is the week we plan to heavily focus on building the product. By early next week, I hope to have a set list of components to be ordered and I hope to have a planned circuit for how the mount would work.