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Shuailin Pan’s Status Report for 03/09

For the past weeks, aside from finishing the design report, I completed the following functions/tests:

  • Working Electromagnet that is able to attract magnet pieces
  • Test and ensure the magnet piece attraction and locking via magnets works across plywood up to 9mm thick
  • Test for locking via non magnetic ferromagnetic sheet metal washer (backup) and concludes that it is not as ideal as using permanent magnet for locking
  • Test and ensure that stepper motor has enough force to separate magnet go pieces with 6mm of plywood in between

Schedule wise, due to the closure of Ideate material lending office during spring break, I was not able to procure more plywood to laser cut the chassis for the feeding magazine and more go pieces. Thus, I was not able to finish the go feeding system as planned for integration.

For next week, after catching up with the unfinished laser cutting jobs, I will assemble and test go feeding chassis integrated with stepper motor, and help with interference testing between electromagnet, HE sensor and locking system. I would also likely begin writing Gomoku software logic in case the team cannot meet up for integration.

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Team Status Report for 03/09

Our most significant risk is the new PCB component that we decided to add to our system to better fit the go board setting and avoid interference with the electro magnet. Since this is a new component and our team has little prior experience with PCB design and fabrication, we face the challenge of ensuring its compatibility with our existing system architecture and meeting our performance standards.

To mitigate the risk associated with the new PCB component, we have tasked Sizhe with learning AutoDesk. Moreover, we are researching online and have taken inspiration from successful PCB designs in similar projects.

For changes in the design, we decide to use permanent magnets as the locking mechanism instead of electromagnets due to budget constraint and circuit ( PCB) complexity. There is no major change to our plan in other areas. Looking forward, we are also actively building the x-y motor system. We hope that we will be able to control the x-y motor system by the end of next week.

Schedule wise, we plan to first implement software web app first in case the team cannot physically meetup for integration. Moreover, we need to catch up with things that were postponed due to the time costed on magnetic lavation device.

———————————EXTRA———————————

A was written by Sizhe Chen,  B was written by Shuailin Pan and C was written by Zipiao Wan.

Part A:

One key aspect of our solution is accessibility. We recognize that not all users may be technologically savvy or have access to high-speed internet connections. Therefore, our product will prioritize the ease of use, ensuring that individuals from diverse backgrounds can easily engage and have fun with it. Moreover, different users around the world might have different experience with go-like game. Those with an Eastern background may be more familiar with Go, while others may have more experience with traditional chess. Our product needs to consider these factors and provide varying levels of assistance accordingly.

Part B:

The automated networked Gomoku game board we’re developing will not only promote Asian culture but also unite different cultures around the globe. By using eye-catching technology, our solution offers a friendly, engaging, and accessible experience, which is able to transcends the language barrier and introduce Asian culture to players worldwide. Moreover, with the networking capability, our game board is able to connect and unite players who enjoy Gomoku from all around the world no matter the country or culture they are from. Through this innovative approach, our product aims to not only popularize Gomoku but also celebrate cultural diversity.

Part C:

For our prototype and product, we are using plywood as the chassis for the board and the shell for the go pieces. Since plywood is durable, and with correct oil sealing treatment: pretty long-lasting, we can ensure the longevity of our product to reduce unnecessary waste. Moreover, since plywood is a renewable material unlike plastic, we can minimize our products environmental impact.  However, the heavy usage of magnets and circuitry will likely encourage rare earth metal excavation and contributes to waste and pollution.

 

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Sizhe Chen’s Status Report for 3/9

This week, my main focus was on completing the design document, which was due before Spring break, as we finalized the design of our system. Additionally, I successfully tested individual hall effect sensor circuits on a breadboard with an Arduino and began designing the PCB components. The hall effect sensor performed as expected, registering a higher voltage in the presence of a magnet. After the break, I plan to discuss with team members the precise threshold for distinguishing between black and white game pieces.

Our progress is slightly behind schedule due to the time spent testing the magnetic levitation device, but we are actively working to catch up as we finalized the change to the system after making the decision to switch to electro magnet.

Looking forward, I anticipate completing the PCB component design and placing the order by next week. Simultaneously, I will assist Cheiv in completing the construction of the x-y motor system and aim to have it operational with the arrival of the CNC shield by next week.

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Zipiao’s Status Report for 3/9

This week, given that our implementation of the piece movement system using magnetic levitation is proven unfeasible, we designed our new solution using electro magnets that can drag the piece along the designated path.

Also, since the stepper motor kits arrived, I started assembling the NEMA 17 linear actuator gantry system. During the assembling process, there are some assembling tools missing, which makes the process a bit behind schedule, but can definitely be caught up in the upcoming week since it’s an easily solvable issue: I need to go to ansys hall to find an electronic screwdriver with enough power to mount end plates to the actuator. Besides that, I completed the process of driving a stepper motor with arduino and A4988 stepper motor driver. Due to the fact that the CNC shield module has not arrived, an integrated testing with 2 stepper motors with x-y gantry system is not feasible at the time.

On the week after spring break, my major task will be to integrate the stepper motor with the x-y gantry. Up on finishing, our team will have a solid basis on controlling the movement system. The rest is just to mount a electro magnet to the top of the xy gantry to make the movement system complete. I will finish assembling the two NEMA 17 linear actuators with stepper motor and experiment with more delicate control of the stepper motor using arduino code that satisfies our criteria for the movement system.

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Zipiao’s Status Report for 2/24

This week, our major progress lies in the validation of magnetic levitation. With the commercial & pre-assembled magnetic levitation kit, we are able to successfully lift the magnet (piece) and drag it along the way, proving that the movement, once the piece is on the air floating, is feasible and stable. For interference, we’ve tested and figured out that if the interference is too high (placing lots of stacked magnets close), the floating magnet will be attracted, yet with a single small magnet, it remains stable for a distance. We may want to look deeper into the safe distance and make adjustments accordingly next week.

Schedule wise, we are a bit falling behind due to the delay in receiving the x-y gantry system, as planned from last week. Yet I still read some documentations on controlling the stepper motors with CNC shield module. I will likely get the xy-gantry to move and complete some testing with controlling two stepper motors next week. We will also continue to experiment with the magnetic levitation system to devise a way to stably move pieces in between without interference.

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Sizhe Chen’s Status Report for 2/24

I am pleased to report that this week, we successfully completed testing of the magnetic levitation device. Despite initial setbacks with the old device, the new device arrived this week and turned out to be functional. We tested for interference with permanent magnets.

Schedule-wise, we are somewhat behind as we just finished the magnetic levitation testing. We will try to catch up by working on everything we currently have on hand. We have started the software component, and we may receive the XY gantry by next week, which we will test as soon as it arrives.

Moving forward, Chiev will be working on the software component. Shuailin and I will implement the Hall effect sensors with Arduino and try to simulate our product scenario, putting a magnetic go piece onto a Hall effect sensor. We are confident that with the completion of device testing, we can now allocate more resources towards testing other parts of our system.

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Team Status Report for 02/24

This week, we mainly test and debug the magnetic levitation device.

Things we Learnt:

The movement during magnetic levitation without magnetic interference is pretty robust and stable as long as there are no sudden stop.

The maglev device can adapt to a wide range of weight and magnetic magnitude for the go piece.

The maglev device requires a very high x-y accuracy to pick up magnet from rest for levitation.

The interference to and from the maglev device to surrounding magnet is larger than expected: around 130 mm to ensure stableness during testing.

The current main risk is that according to the interference distance, the grid cell size will be much larger than we expected. We will have to test for locking mechanism together with the maglev device to finalize the grid cell size, and change the board size or game size accordingly as mitigation.

For next week, we will mainly test for locking interference with maglev, assemble the gantry and see if it can reach the desired accuracy for consistent maglev pickup.

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Shuailin Pan’s Status Report for 02/24

This week, I mainly help with testing and debugging the magnetic levitation device. We successfully make levitation work, ensure the feasibility of movement during maglev, test the accuracy requirement for the maglev device, test the interference distance, and deduce the rough general grid size requirement. (More details in Team status report) We also ensure the feasibility of using custom magnets for the maglev device:

For the Go feeding system that I’m responsible for, I designed a brief physical housing for the Go piece magazine and modeled it in Solidworks.

The current risk is that our rough interference distance estimate (about 130 mm) is relatively big compared to the gantry size (500mm x 500mm), which means the grid size (eg. 5×5 vs 6×6) may not be as big as we’d like. For possible mitigations, we need to test more robust locking mechanism, or switch to board games with smaller grid size (eg. Gomoku vs Tik-Tack-Toe)

Next week, we are going to test for electronic magnet locking mechanism and its interference with maglev design and test the gantry accuracy once it arrives. For piece feeding, I will use the laser cutter to cut out the design and see if the go piece mag works.

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Shuailin Pan’s Status Reports for 02/17

This week, I mainly discusses the quantitative metrics that we need for the design report and help with soldering and debugging the DIY magnetic kit with Chen.  I also continue on doing research about stepper motor torque calculation and magnetic force calculation to prepare for the design metrics.

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/tools/stepper-motor-calculator/

https://www.kjmagnetics.com/calculator.asp

Risk management wise, due to the failure to debug the center piece of our project (maglev device), the risk is skyrocketing, since many of the tests such as interference and movement are dependent on the maglev device. To get back on schedule, we have decided to leave the finicky maglev device alone and switch to commercial product for more reliability. Luckily, for the gantry system, we decide to buy half-built system instead of building from scratch, which would leave some extra time in our original schedule.

Next week, aside from the design presentations, I will mainly focus on testing the new commercial maglev device with our teammates, and also start building and testing the integrated feeding system using device that match the specs from this week’s calculation.

 

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Chiev’s Status Report for 2.17

This week, I made progress on the specs of the xy-gantry system, as planned from last week. Specifically, I figured out the exact hardware needed for making the xy-gantry. Two V-Slot® NEMA 17 Linear Actuator Bundle are needed to form the basis of the x-y gantry. The stepper motors (NEMA 17) are included in the bundle with the track to move a platform in their axis. We only need to assemble the two bundles on top of each other in order to make the system move. Next, we will need two A4988 stepper motor drives that can seamlessly drive the two motors in the bundle. We will need another module CNC shield to act as the interface between our Arduino UNO board and the drives.

My progress remains on track according to the original schedule. Looking ahead to next week, I aim to focus on ordering and testing the movement of the x-y gantry system. I will start exploring the code to control the movement of the two axis. The final goal of this will be to write an Arduino interface program that can precisely control the stepper motor to move to a specific location given the location of the cross on the gomoku board, yet for next week, since we still need time to order and get the hardware, I will set the goal to successfully connect the hardwares (motors, drivers, cnc shield, and arduino uno), and leave the complete interface development to the week later.