All Blog Posts (126)

Yesterday the main goal of the lab session was to finish mounting all of the sensors, wire them up, and get ready to connect everything together. Mason and Tom were finishing up the sensor circuit board and the pic board respectively, and I took the time to mount the IR range sensors to the base and break beam sensors to the upper section of the arm. I also ran wire through the base from the sensor to the approximate spot where the sensor board will be mounted on our robot. I'll have to get…

Today I asked Prof. Emami for the circuit diagram of the RTC module. I was then able to make that circuit and integrate it with the PIC Board and my LCD. For those who would like to make their own RTC module, I have uploaded the circuit diagram in my photo section. Be sure to check it out because it really saves you a lot of time.

Below is a video of the working circuit on protoboard:…

Last week, two programmers Kevin Tan and I worked on the circuits for keypad and LCD. As our groups both use the PIC boards to save money for our circuit and electromech members, we designed and assembled the two circuits and connected them to the PIC. They only require some capacitors, resistors, wires and two IC's. Below is a link to a video documenting the results of our work.

http://youtu.be/eSjynyepa6g

Today was Individual Evaluation 2! Because I was fortunate enough to be evaluated closer to the end, the day in the shop was pretty productive.

After remounting the encoder system with a smaller crossbar and battery mount, it was time to begin integrating the circuits and electromechanical subsystems. Mason set up the fuse and emergency switch on the…

Many milestones were hit this week for our team. On Tuesday, we started the beginning of the long integration process, testing out how Tom's coded pulse width modulation would work through Mason's driver board when connected to the fully mounted (and functional) motors. The results were very promising.

On the electromechanical side specifically, The final structure of the robot is complete. The motors were remounted using steel strapping instead of plumbing fittings, which…

Over the weekend, I have finished writing code for the PWM output that can drive motors at different rates. Since Mason has soldered his driver circuit and Abigail has the mobile base assembled, we decided to integrate the three parts together.

The result turned out to be pretty good: the 12V power source powered the entire circuit which then amplified the PWM signals sent from the PIC. Based on the PWM duty cycles, the two motors span at different speeds.…

Today was pretty standard - went to the soldering seminar, and then hit the shop around 3:00. The day was spent prototyping our arm design.

Our arm is passive - we have no motors or actuators attached to it. The concept is pretty basic - small, light balsa wood strips are mounted to a rotational bearing that is centred in the robot, mounted 45cm up. On the end of the arm, elastic bands are used to both stabilize it (preventing unwanted bouncing etc.) and as the…

I spent quite some time trying to be able to write data to EEPROM, but no matter what I did it wouldn't work. Even when I copied the exact same code the book provides, it didn't do anything. I emailed Prof. Emami about it today and this is his response:

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Hi Andrew, the reason why it doesn't write to the EEPROM is that you do not disable the EEPROM write…

Hey does any AER group have two AC to DC power supplies? Our group lost ours so may I please ask you guys to do me a favour, if you ever found out you took two power supplies by accident, would you please return one to me? Thanks in advance and I really appreciate that! ps, I am in Tuesday's tutorial. pps, I am the guy carring a sony DSLR everyday in case you don't know me.

Man, Wednesday section is packed. I don't think I'll go back to Wednesday sessions unless I REALLY need the time... lots of people who didn't have labs must have come also, and the tools were in high demand, along with the workspace.

Today, both motors were successfully mounted to the base. The transmission system is complete! I am very proud of my handiwork, as it took me around 2-3 hours to get the alignment of the gears perfect. The result is worth it though - I'll post a…

Today focussed mostly on the fabrication of the drive base module. I was able to complete the entire base, including the mounting of the motors, however my team decided that a full length chassis bar would be more structurally sound than the current half length, and since this is easy to change and mount to the existing base, we decided to do this. The picture below shows the base sans one motor and the cross support for the arm I started during the last hour - I have to remember to take…

And so the weekend of typing, calculating, planning, shopping, and unfortunately not sleeping comes to a close. The infamous report covers have been found, the proposals printed, and are now no longer our problem.

Though it was possible for me to complete my sections of the proposal in 3 long spurts (Friday from 10-2:30 am, Saturday from 11 - 1pm, 5pm-12:30am, and Sunday 11am-8pm) I would not want to do that again. A good target week to start the final report is probably week…

It's probably too late, but here is a VERY handy web-applet for drawing flow charts:

http://www.lucidchart.com/

It's actually the first result Google finds if you search for "flow chart maker," so anyone who looked for one has likely already found this. But here it is anyways.

This is where I will be for most likely the next 6 hours. Got my hot chocolate, laptop for media entertainment and information, and the writing instruments. Its figure drawing time, then hitting the electromech specifications last.

At least the conceptualization section is finished!…

Cassie's post reminded me of a nifty application that can be used for AHP analysis, which the appendix to the Wikipedia article on AHP links to.

http://www.superdecisions.com/

It's free; all you have to do is set up an account and request a serial key. Once you download it (the Windows-compatible version works on W7 too), it may be awkward to learn how use it. Here's what we need to know:

1) To create…

Ok, if anyone else is planning on making an AHP for conceptualization in the proposal, here's a fool proof method:

1) Follow this wikipedia example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Analytic_Hierarchy_Process/Example_Leader

2) In the mysterious parts where they get decimal numbers (and are actually solving for eigenvectors of 4x4 matrices...) use THIS handy…

Hey 1T4's and all others,

I was having some trouble doing the survey, particularly the "industry" survey, as I drew a blank to how to access patents. I often came across ones where I had to pay, or had poor search methods, etc.

I went to the Engineering Library over the weekend, and they directed me to:…

Hey everyone,

After going through the list of suppliers for the project, it seems that we've found the same thing- a lot of them have closed up shop.  So I'm going to try my best to keep this list up to date with URLs, names, addresses and phone numbers.  If you want anything added, just comment!

Ability Metals & Machine - www.abilitymetals.com

963 Brock Road, Pickering, ON, L1W…

This morning, Jenny, Cassie, Kristine and myself missioned down to Solway to go check out the kind of scrap metal we would be able to work with (in time for our practical sessions on monday and tuesday). 

Though I was expecting the building to look like it did (it is a scrap metal place) it was not Home Depot like (by any means :P) and so the…

Post 1 – January 10^th, 2012

It’s official! Our team has been chosen. Mason, Tom and myself will be working on the problem assigned to the Tuesday Lab Section, the Sticker Inspector Machine. If you are in the Tuesday section also, feel free to leave a comment. It…