Drawbot
Class: Designing & Prototyping (ME 211)
Year: Spring 2018
Goal: Create a fully autonomous robot that is able to accurately trace a shape, given only 1 hour prior to the competition.
FEATURES
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Arduino based robot, easy to program instructions/directions to trace
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uses only two stepper motors, pulleys, four rods, and a single long belt
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modular pen holder allows for any type of pen to be used with the drawbot
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smooth lines and turns
VIDEO
Technical Details
In order to save costs and time, many of the materials used for the Drawbot was either found in the labs as spares or scrap pieces.To minimize the number of parts, only one Arduino, four rods, three pulleys, two stepper motors, and one long belt was used. Most of the small pieces and mechanisms (such as spacers, supports, pen holder, etc) were modeled on SolidWorks, and 3D Printed. Other parts were machined to ensure that the drawbot is functional, and assembled. The total cost of the drawbot was $0.
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The drawbot uses the same concept as a 3D Printer, but without the z-axis (height). Because only one long belt is used, the drawbot is able to move in smooth motions, in all directions. The angles and directions of the drawbot's movement is controlled by the direction of the two stepper motors, and can be modified to draw any shape desired or given.
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This drawbot was one of the only 2 drawbots during the competition to be able to completely trace an arbitrary shape given an hour before. The program was modified to be able to trace both the straight lines of the triangle and the angled arc on the bottom. The drawbot was able to trace the shape most accurately, in the shortest amount of time.
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