Welcome to the Team G - Unit's Webpage

This is the home page dedicated to our 18-578 Mechatronic project.

In this page you will find a brief description of our design. You will also find a photo gallery that shows an overview of the design, the subsystems, and G Unit in action.

Team Members: Andrew Baldwin, Jaspar Siu, Matt Zucker.

Project description:

Our project is to design and construct a pick-and-place manipulator intended to autonomously solve the well-known “Tower of Hanoi” puzzle. To solve the puzzle, a graduated series of stacking disks must be moved across a set of three pegs, subject to the restriction that no larger disk may ever be stacked on top of a smaller one. Our design features three main axes of motion: a rotating turntable upon which the pegs are affixed, an elevator platform that translates up and down, and a spatula-like forklift mounted on the elevator platform. Disk detection and classification is accomplished through the use of an infrared proximity sensor, and user interface is accomplished via RS-232 communications to a PC. Despite our attempts to create a relatively minimal, uncomplicated design, there were a number of obstacles we needed to overcome during development, including elevator binding issues, motor selection issues, and electrical noise on sensors. In the end, we were able to create a device satisfactorily able to solve the puzzle

Finally, here is the link to course description of our Mechatronic class.