156A Week 9

Project Overview

FarmBot is an open source CNC technology used to automate agricultural practices. It utilizes a rigid frame to traverse in 3 degrees of freedom across rectangular garden plots. Different tool attachments can be connected to perform a variety of functions, such as seeding, watering, and weed detection.

Week 8-9 Progress

• Gantt Chart was created - COMPLETED by Kaela

• Literature review was conducted on cable driven systems to understand existing designs with corresponding system parameters and constraints - ONGOING by Kaela and Euric

• System parameters were narrowed down to two choices. Parameters include degrees of freedom, number of cables, and number of motors - COMPLETED by Kaela and Euric

• Research conducted on existing FarmBot features and technology - ONGOING by Samantha

• Experimented with spatial and positional identification in MATLAB, identifying how cable lengths would differ to translate position in 2D plane - COMPLETED by Robert

• Outlined Arduino code to recognize position using 3 encoders - COMPLETED by Robert

Week 9-10 Goals

• ACTION - Kaela and Euric to continue literature review and create summary of learnings

• ACTION - Samantha to create summarized spec sheet

• ACTION - Samantha and Kaela to make small scale prototype to test how variability in cable tension affects movement of end effector (garden tool)

• ACTION - Euric and Robert to perform calculations for motor parameters using FarmBot spec sheet and design constraints. Determine what type of motors are needed.

• ACTION - Robert to test out encoder code with motors

Feedback from Sponsor

Project Objective - Recap

The sponsor has asked that Team 6 tackle the following research questions:

1. Can the FarmBot infrastructure be modified to allow for greater flexibility, including management of taller vegetation and various garden plot shapes or sizes?

2. Is it possible to modify the existing FarmBot components to achieve a cable driven system?

Deliverables

The sponsor has specified that a working prototype is not required as a final project. He specifically emphasized the importance of product development documentation for implementation within the open source community. The sponsor has already ordered the FarmBot technology, and the students are expected to have full access to it by the beginning of January.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the student team has only been able to meet with their sponsor once. The next Sponsor meeting is scheduled for Friday 12/04/2020.

Feedback from Instructor

• Pose the project objective as research questions. Choose one main question to focus on

  • What is the broader context/impact of this FarmBot project?

  • What is the real life problem faced by FarmBot users?

  • What agricultural question(s) are we trying to solve? (i.e. various terrain types, size constraints, height constraints, vegetation type)

• Risk Reduction should not be action items.

  • Action items are tools that can be used to mitigate the risk

  • What risks must we actually assess? Identify the potential hazards.

• Presentation tips

  • Less detail, more summary

  • Don’t make the slides so heavily condensed with content

  • Include more visuals and label the figures to help portray ideas

  • Include an intro video to show how the system works

Budget: $5600

Spent: $3000 (FarmBot hardware)

Remaining: $2600