Pole Adaptive Design

Pole Adaptive Design

When we first design our machine to do the strategy of getting the red and black balls on top of the tower, we found out that the tower had some kind of flap extension which will cause problems when we are trying to get the black ball. The upper arm will hit the flap, which makes the machine not able to reach the black ball.

Therefore, we came up with an idea of using a spring steel and a magnet which enables the upper arm to deflect when it hits the flap, and then turn it back to the original condition.

We also intentionally made the lower arm tilted at an angle to make sure that the black ball falls to the designated slope area. It also turns out that making it at an angle will help the lower arm to reach the black ball easier.

This is the physical image of the arm after manufacturing process.

Working hard on the project!

Manufacturing / Assembling Problems

Manufacturing / Assembling Problems

1. Mouth

   The gap between the right and left mouth appears to be too wide.

   

   Solution:

   Bend the mouth inward.

   

   Before                                                                                After

              

2.Base Plate

    The holes made on the base plate were not accurate. This caused problems with a misalignment
    on the gears, and resisting the motion of the axle. 

                          

3. Center of Gravity

     After being fully assembled, the center of gravity was behind the axle causing the motor to fall

     backwards.

     Solution:  
     Install another ball casters on the back of the machine.

                                       

4. Slope

    The ball rolled off the side of the slope.

   Solution:

   Bend the side of the slope to provide a "fence" for the ball.

                                      

To do list

- Created a google doc containing a parts list and a to-do list for each part. Shared it with all of you so you    should be able to edit the document. Look at it and see if I missed out anything.

- Base plate holes are off, look at updated CAD uploaded on CTools.

Lots of things to do before the design expo! We need to keep working hard.

I DONT THINK THE BLOG IS FOR POSTING COMMENTS, WE SHOULD POST PICTURES OF OUR PROGRESS AND MODIFICATIONS IN OUR DESIGN.

I plan on manufacturing the base plate using the laser cutter on friday, so lets try to finalize our gear ratio for the planetary gearbox so i can get the correct hole placement for the motor mount.

To do before MS7

1) Change size of bolts in CAD to #6 screws
2) Finalize motor-gearbox combination (calculate expected speed of vehicle)
3) Finalize mechanism and design of pole arm
4) Figure out how to attach shaft on to wheels