Embedded Files
Our Team
Our Team
We are The Pistons (because of our motor piston design presented in our sculptures): Sam, Brandon, Rhys, and Matt. While Sam focused on coding the majority of the program, Brandon and Matt helped create the marble track and frame. Last but not least, Rhys created and finalized a specific, easily replicated piston design connected to an NXT Motor. While each team member focused on these tasks, they did not focus exclusively on them, and the building process was an open ground for suggestions and aid.
Kinetic Sculptures
Kinetic Sculptures
Our team members learned how to design, analyze, fabricate and control several kinetic sculptures! The kinetic sculptures include individual Pendulum Clocks, a controlled Mini Sculpture and an automated Full Sculpture created by our team.
Design was facilitated with Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools implemented in Fusion and AutoCAD.
Analysis of the dynamics of movement of the sculptures is based on fundamental physics with the mathematical description of motion covered in lectures and simulations facilitated by Working Model 2D (WM2D).
Fabrication is done both manually in the Dept. of MAE Design Studio and automated with Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) tools provided by the LaserCAMM and optional 3D printing, initiated by a Clock Project.
Additional motion control is added to our kinetic sculptures by using Lego NXT sensors, including our specially designed COSMOS ball speed sensor, NXT motors and programming an NXT using RobotC.
Our team webpage gives a summary of both our individual and team effort to make our kinetic sculptures work as designed!
Accomplishments
Accomplishments
In summary, our team was able to accomplish building a completely autonomous marble track using a conveyer belt that brought all the marbles to the start of the track after they reached the end. We created and coded three pistons: One piston that pushed the ball back up a track after detecting it or after a button was pressed to allow it to continue rolling, another piston that lowered a ramp (initially pointed upwards) on a hinge after detecting a ball in order to allow it to pass through, and one last position that swapped between two tracks after a ball rolls down it to allow for the next ball to go down the other track. We also installed a trampoline jump that would allow the ball to bounce and then be caught in a ball catcher before continuing down the track, as well as a loop within the track.
Page updated
Report abuse