MEC101 Robot Design Project

Mechanical Engineering, Stony Brook University, NY

Welcome to the MEC 101 Robot Design Project Web Site!

This page describes the project objectives, goals, and rules for the Robot Design project. We have created a set of Arduino programming tutorials, which you can refer to during Arduino programming. You will also find links to various internet resources that can help you with Arduino programming, robot building, electronics schematics, etc. Use the left navigation menu to get to the requisite section.

Objective

You have multiple choices for selecting and proposing your project. Here are some possibilities, but you are not limited by these:

1. Walking Robots

You can design and build a walking robot (biped, quadruped, or hexapod, or some other leg topology), which walks at a reasonable speed. The robot does not have to necessarily walk on a flat ground; it could climb walls or stairs. You can take inspiration from nature to see how various creatures walk and then implement them using a single degree-of-freedom (DOF) linkage system (four-bar or higher) or a multi-degrees-of-freedom mechanism. A single-DOF mechanism requires only one actuator (motor) to drive it. MotionGen allows you to design single-DOF planar four-bar mechanism. An example of a 1-DOF system is a four-bar linkage where a certain point of the coupler traces a path taken by the foot of a walking insect. A Multi-DOF system is usually driven by many actuators; for a walking robot, it can enabled by a set of servos controlling the joint motions of legs. Here are a few examples of walking robots from previous years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BirzmswqKQ (based on single-DOF mechanism)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PqjxoSKUYM (based on single-DOF mechanism)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMEOR7N8RqE ( based on a multi-DOF mechanism)

2. Social Robot

You can design a robot that interacts with human beings, such as a robot that tries to shake your hands, smiles at you, or plays with you. An example from Fall 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQNTMsjc6Wc

3. Autonomous Toy

You can design and build an autonomous toy that would amuse an approximately three years old child. The choice of motion is your's, but to a child the motion activity of the toy should be amusing. An example is Zhu Zhu hamster, which when released by pressing a button goes around exploring its environment, changing direction of movement when hitting an obstacle and occasionally tries to climb the obstacle while making adorable noises typical of a creature of that size and cuteness. See an amateur youtube video demo of this hamster at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OcoPwQt_js . I urge you to go to a toy store (or spend time online at their web sites) and explore some toys that have interesting motions. Here is an example of soccer ball kicking robot from two years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss6WGz8abf4

Here, is an example from Fall 2018; a robot fish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fZJszffg5g

4. Bio-inspired Robots

Design, prototype, and program a robot that mimics locomotion of creatures from nature; such as insects, quadrupeds, fishes, birds, etc. Study animal motions and select one that you would like to replicate in your creation. See some examples here:

https://youtu.be/XDeR1JYXSy0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2u4-ltiZJo

This category of the robot may have some overlap with walking machines.

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You can go to http://www.youtube.com and search for MEC101 Stony Brookand you will find hundreds of video demos of the robots that MEC101 students have created in the past. Take a look at them to gain some inspiration, but definitely not copy them. Use your own imagination and creativity. While watching those videos, you will notice that many teams choose to embellish their projects with colors, lights, and shapes, which add to the aesthetic appeal of the project. I encourage you to use your artistic side in combination with the function.


Rules and Design Constraints

1. The Robot should produce a motion that can be termed as either useful or entertaining. The motion has to be visible from a distance of at least 5-10 ft. The robot should have at least some sensing capabilities, such as collision avoidance using ultrasonic sensor, infra-red for motion detection, light detection, camera, color sensing, etc. We will be learning about the sensors in the class.

2. There has to be a switch on board that when pressed will initiate the motion that should last no less than 30 seconds and no more than 60 seconds. Program it so that it comes to a stop at the end of 60 seconds.

3. The device can be wirelessly remotely controlled, however you may not touch it during its motion. Controlling the robot wirelessly is out of the scope of this class, so if you want to do this, then you would have to learn how to do this on your own. I am allowing it because I don't want to curb your skills and enthusiasm in case you are capable enough to do this. However, the robot also has to be able to function autonomously. You will primarily demo the autonomous mode in your final presentation, but you can also showcase a wireless controlled mode.

4. The motion produced has to be a safe one. It should not harm any bystanders or anything in its vicinity.

5. The device has to have an on-board battery that will be used to power the machine. You cannot connect it to an AC power outlet.

6. The structure of the machine has to be designed and put together by you, which means that you cannot buy a ready-made chassis or frame. The SnappyXO kit provided to you should be sufficient to put together most of your designs, as after all, in a team of four students, you will have four times as many components. However, if you can justify in your design that you need a certain part not in the SnappyXO kit, you can submit the design to us and we will laser-cut it for you. However, we need at least two weeks of time before the Thanksgiving break to do any custom cutting. I will share the inventor parts files of the SnappyXO kit so that you can edit those files. You can also use iCreate lab to laser cut files.

7. You can only buy components that cannot be easily designed and laser-cut, such as motors, any electronic parts, or a 3D Part that cannot be easily laser cut. Alternatively, you can also use Lego or Erector sets for building the structure of the machine, but self-designed and designs based on SnappyXO will get more points. Glue-guns should be used as a last resort as they will lead to point reduction. You should create your design such that you can assemble the planar pieces in the SnappyXO kit to realize your design.

8. The robot has to be programmed using an Arduino microcontroller (Uno, Mega, nano, or any other ones).

9. The entire robot should fit in a box of size 1’x1’ x1’. If you need to create an environment to demo the robot, such as a maze, you can do that and will not count against the size of the robot. For certain robots, if approved by me, I can make an exception on the size.

Be Inspired!

Goal

The goal of this project is to motivate you to think about designing and prototyping programmable, electro-mechanical devices at an early stage of your engineering career. In doing so, you begin to appreciate the importance of learning fundamentals in a fun and exciting design context while also learning to communicate ideas and working in a team.

A simple wheeled-robot with an uninteresting motion even if equipped with some sensory capabilities is a bad choice for this project. I have already given you a two-wheeled drive robot, so you can’t just slap some sensors on it and call it a project. A few bad examples: a light seeking or avoiding robot, an obstacle avoiding robot either via bumpers or ultrasonic sensors. Unless you are doing major value addition, such as may be adding a claw functionality to grab something or transforming a wheeled robot into a walking one for uneven terrain, the project would be a bad one and will not be approved. On the other hand, adding simple sensing functionality on more complex motions, such as walking is fine.