Week 5 - Journal

My assignment's idea for this week is to design, and build a simple Spirograph robot that can draw random beautiful patterns. A pattern is a design in which lines, shapes, forms, or colors are repeated.

I inspired the idea of the assignment from the hand sketching. The design is made from cardboard where the plotter arm is controlled by one dc motor, and the plotter based is rotated by other the DC motor.

Electronic components:

1- Mini DC Gearbox Motor

A gear motor is a combination of a DC motor and gearbox. The gears use to reduce the speed of the motor while increasing the torque output.

2- 9V DC Adapter

The adaptor converts AC power to 9-volt DC for powering most electronic devices ( in our case the dc motor).

3- 5V DC Adapter

The adaptor converts AC power to 5-volt DC for powering most electronic devices ( in our case the dc motor).

4- ON/OFF Switch

5- Breadboard

A breadboard allows for easy and quick creation of temporary electronic circuits or to carry out experiments with circuit design. Breadboards enable developers to easily connect components or wires thanks to the rows and columns of internally connected spring clips underneath the perforated plastic enclosure.

6- DC Jack to terminal block converter

7- Jumper Wires (Male-Male)

8 - Crocodile Wires

Materials:

• Cardboard: Cardboard is a heavy-duty paper-based product having a greater thickness and superior durability or other specific mechanical attributes to paper; such as foldability, rigidity, and impact resistance. So, I used it to make the prototype of the design.

software:

• Tinkercad is an online 3D modeling program for creating models for 3D printing as well as Circuits and Code Blocks. I used it to build and simulate the full circuits before building and testing them on a physical breadboard.

Design and Simulate Circuits :

1- After logging in to Tinkercad, click on "Circuits" on the left-hand side.

2- The "Create New Circuit" homepage in Tinkercad.

3- Start by adding the power supply and 5v power supply to my design.

4- Adding the output action components ( dc motor ) to the circuit design.

5- Adding the input components ( ON/OFF switch) to the circuit design.

7- Adding connections between the components, as shown in the Figure.

9-Starting the simulation, as shown in the video.

The design and implementation process :

1- The crocodile wires and Jumper Wires have been used to connect the components together (as shown in the photos )

2- The DC motors have been separately powered at first, in order to make sure that they are functional, before putting them together in the circuit.

3- The DC Jack to terminal block converter has been connected to the DC jack of the DC Power adapter to power the motors in parallel.

4- The crocodile wires have been used to connect the on/off switch with the Dc motor to the DC Power adapter.

5- the cardboard has been used to create the plotter arm. The one dc motors have been attached to the plotter arm, to control its motion.

6- The Cardboard has been used to make a wheel, which attached with other dc motor, to rotate it.

7- After all connections are completed and ready, the DC power adapter has been plugged into the wall outlet to power the plotter.

8- The video shows the electrical drawing robot while functioning.

From the EOWeek Self-Practice videos, i have learned how to use the Tinkercad to build and simulate the electronics circuits online. This was the first time that I used the online platform ( Tinkercad) to finished my simulation, I am always using the Proteus and MATLAB/SIMULINK.

The challenges

In the first trial, I used one dc motor to control the plotter's small wheel where the arm is fixed and to rotate the big wheel at the same time as shown in the upper figure. but because the motor power I limited, this design was not able to fit with its function

The solution

To overcome this overload, I used two motors, one for small wheels. And, the second motor to rotate the big wheel, which is used as a base for drawing paper, as shown in the below figure

This week's assignment was my first step toward the final project, where my final project is drawing robot.

By the end of this week, I learned different skills that will support me in the final project, such as :

- Designing and simulating electronic circuits containing multiple components using Tinkercad.

- Using the physical breadboard to connect and wire the electronics components.

- Using the cardboard to Integrate the circuit within the device enclosure.

- Using the Avometer to troubleshoot problems in electrical circuits.

Hackathon RC Car

IN this hackathon, my team worked to design and build an RC car controlled over two h bridge. We built two h-bridge circuits on two separate breadboards to control each of the DC motors separately. The body of the car has been designed using the Fusion 36o. After the car was functional and the final outcome is demonstrated, we used the laser cut machine to fabricate the RC base. After that finished the assembly and testing of the RC car, we were ready for the Sumo battle. Really, It was an amazing and WOW experiment !!!!