Group 071-13: Robot Symphony!

Thursday, June 1st was the day of the performance. Throughout the week and the night before we finalized the major changes to our design, the final circuitry and mechanism completed with finishing touches. Image 1: Final Breadboard  Image 2: Lower view of project Image 3: Upper view of project A lot of electrical tape was used in constructing the stands for the drums, and to make the project look less ugly, we spray-painted them red. We also spray-painted the project stands blue, and it turned out it required all of our blue spray paint. Fortunately, we had already finished the golf balls.  The new mechanism worked so much better than the last because of its almost-never-failing reliability, However, it was pretty difficult cutting out holes in the PVC pipes for the plastic parts to fit since we did not have any electric tools to come to our aid. So the night before, some of our lungs were filled with PVC pipe dust.  To up our image, we incorporated L...

During the final weeks of the project, we received criticism and harsh feedback on our project during the audition engineering lab. We got the project to work, but the thought that there was a chance that our batteries would expand when connected for too long always lingered in the back of our heads. We didn't get to angle the drums in time so they would bounce in the bucket, but our pin design did work. Since we were running low on the Amazon batteries, we decided to pick up new batteries. Image 1: 9V CVS battery We were told as of this week that our current design would not be able to be in the performance, since the delay time was too long and it seemed that the construction of our design had a long way to go. In the process of brainstorming and changing our design, we discovered the reason why our batteries were expanding. One of our servos, specifically servo #4, had some sort of manufacturing error and was malfunctioning probably the whole entire time. And since it was...

After contemplating over the current drumset that we had, group thirteen agreed to buy a new drumset. The current one that we have is more of a kiddie drumset, and the sound would probably not carry in a robot symphony. We did not pay a suitable price for these drums, and therefore the quality we received was not suitable for our project. The new drums we received were an actual beginner's set, and even though the set is meant for amateurs, the sound was way more audible and of greater quality than the last set. Image 1&2: Mendini Drums By week seven, for the most part we finished the whole design, complete with PVC pipes, a metal grid for the frame, and a wooden stand. While constructing, framing was the main problem, trying to fit all the PVC pipes onto one design and where it could fit. We used long PVC pipes so the golf balls could be held and we didn't have to constantly reload in order to play more notes.We can predict that it may be a little tricky transporti...

In week six, group thirteen received the reordered golf balls and servos. However, the 3D printers were still unavailable for multiple reasons. So instead of printing out our mechanism, we used a cut up part of a plastic pipe with an incision on the side, where the body of a nail would be placed to lift the pin up and down, releasing one golf ball at a time. It was decided that the pins would be placed inside PVC pipe splitters, which seems like the best fit for the mechanism.                                                                                        Image 1: Nike golf balls                                                   ...

Although our group ordered all the required parts, issues arose in their arrival. Group thirteen never received important materials, such as the golf balls and servos, although the mailing system confirmed its delivery. Unfortunately we cannot continue our project without these items, leading us to test and continue our trials with one lone golf ball and a servo. Another issue the group ran into concerned the 3D printers. Regardless of group members going to the labs before class repeatedly to use the Afinia 3D printers the lab provides, we still could not complete printing out our desired pieces. Nozzles continuously would get clogged, impeding the creation of the 3D parts, on top of other students using the printers, as well as multiple printers running into maintenance issues and even breaking down. Picture 1: Result of a clogged nozzle - an incomplete (but crucial) part On the bright side, we figured out how to work Teensy 3.2 by simply uploading a code.

Picture 1: A drum and cymbal with our 3D printed mechanism             Our group received our materials in Week 3 and thus began working on our design. The group decided to reevaluate the approach we initially planned for, changing the design from a rotating flap at the bottom of each PVC pipe to a 3D printed mechanism. We plan to program the servo to lift a separate, inserted part of the body (a pin) to push out one individual golf ball. At the bottom of our new mechanism, a sponge taped to the bottom edge prevents the golf balls from rapidly spilling out, allowing us total control of when the golf balls come out. Picture 2: New design - 3D printed mechanism

      For week two, our group made sure that we ordered our supplies for our instrument. In our project proposal, we projected the cost for the materials, as shown below: Table 1: Projected Cost       The mechanical hardware are basically the physical, non-electrical aspects of the design. This category includes: a drum set, a bucket, PVC pipes, projectiles, plastic covers,wood, and nails. We plan to also buy four Arduino Servos that are needed to control the instrument through MIDI. Servos are relatively an inexpensive product that requires simple coding, in order to create a working project.Within this project, they will control the flow of projectiles by removing and applying a cover to individual PVC pipes that are filled with projectiles.       The actual costs for our materials are found in the table below. Most of our supplies are purchased  online from Amazon and Home Depot. While the hardware prices were projected accur...