Week 10: Acquiring materials from the shop

This week I disassembled the suspension from last year to obtain the actuator the team used. This actuator will be used for our test frame. I also found leftover material that could be used for some of the parts that need to be manufactured. Next week we have our presentation, so I will be preparing for that in the mean time.

Week 9: Spring Break Progress

I was given advice by my ME106 lab instructor to use the PID() function from Arduino to account for the self-balancing logic in our main code. After researhcing and digging into multiple forums I was finally able to develop a code that could potentially work for our application. A problem that I ran into was that since the PID() function takes the error of inclination an adjusts the actuator accordingly, which requires the system to actually be built in order to troubleshoot.

Week 8: Test Frame Arduino Code

For this week, I researched methods on how we could use a mechatronic system to simulate the half-scale track with a test frame. The test frame will be used to showcase our design at Maker Faire, since we do not plan on transporting the half-scale track to Maker Faire. I figured the best way to simulate the track is with an actuator that moves a rail within a range of -17 to 17 degrees. A switch will be used to toggle between a joystick that is user-controlled and a default mode that simply traverses the track between -17 and 17 degrees in a loop.

Week 7: Interfacing the Motor Driver with Arduino

For this week I was able to interface the motor driver and linear actuator with Arduino. When running the program I had an issue trying to move the actuator in the opposite direction, however Dr. Furman assisted me and let me know that I needed a common ground.

I will begin to work on the self-balancing logic and code from this week on with aims to finish it by the end of Spring Break.

Week 6: Presentation 1

This week we gave our first presentation to the other sub-teams. A link to the presentation is below.

Week 5: Start of Presentations and Adding Bearings to the Design

For this week we listened to other sub-teams from Spartan Superway present their first presentation. We will present our presentation next week.

We have decided to add bearings to each of the joints on the linkage assembly. This will reduce the amount of friction and throughout the system and ease the forces on the actuator. We found that this would increase our budget for the Bill of Materials, however we are looking into alternative vendors to find cheaper parts.

Week 4: General Session and Sourcing Parts

For this week we attended the General Session for ME195B in which we were taught how to make an effective presentation. This information will be beneficial for us as the first presentation for the semester begins next week.

We found an actuator from last years half-scale presentation team that could be potentially used in our frame design. Additionally, I was able to interface not just the gyroscope with the Arduino, but the accelerometer as well. My 106 lab TA had instructed me to use both sensors for more accurate values for the orientation of the pod car.