Low Speed.viSo finally, our last project of the year, we made improvements from our prototype from last week!
As our final showcase project, we took a 180 degree turn away from our original prototype. This is because we got much needed feedback and advice from the children, parents, and faculty from the research center. So what we did was we wanted to keep the idea of making our toy a “game”. So it ended up being a game that was both a mix of bowling and target practice,.
So the design starts from the base, where a large turntable is attached to multiple ratio-ed gears to a worm gear so that the base would rotate whatever was on top of it in a circular motion. By coding in labview by rotating the motors to one side for a period of time then the opposite for the same time period, we had ourselves a rotating platform. The second part of the robot was the ball launcher, which was formed as a structure made of multiple types of beams and axles, then coded that in labview by running the motor at full power for certain time, then rewinding it for the same time, to reset the location of the initial point.
We ended up attaching some strips of papers to the pins, to make them easier to hit. Kids gave us good feedback on our changes.
Some problems we ran into was drifting between the gears, where instead of roaming the same range, the platform started slowly drifting to the leftside of the robot.
But all in all, this project was by far our best project ever!