MEC101 Fall 2020 Robot Design Project website is live!
1. 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. 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.
2. 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 SanppyXO 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. See project web site for more information.
You can also use modular kits for building the structure of your machine. Here are some of them:
Thames & Kosmos: http://www.thamesandkosmos.com/
The Physics Pro Box: http://www.thamesandkosmos.com/products/pp/pp.html
Lego kits: http://www.lego.com/
Erector Sets: http://www.erector.us/
Meccano: http://www.meccano.com/
Knex: http://www.knex.com/
Mechanical Design and Construction
How to fix broken motor leads
How to build a wheeled platform using the Ax-man motors (courtesy TC Robotics Club)
Rotary-to-linear motion using a lead screw (courtesy of Seattle Robotics Club)
Some drive-train pictures (courtesy TC Robotics Club)
How to get the gear off the Ax-man gearmotor