Week 15 - Wiring Diagram & Operation

Our prototype consists of three sub-assemblies: (1) Bottom Housing - grip the bottle in place, (2) Top Gripper - twist the lid off, (3) Linear Lifting - lower (2). Our prototype will have a two-button user interface - one will loosen the lid, the other will tighten the lid. Once the user places the bottle/jar on the circular platform, they will then push the button to activate. The arms will first close-in, securing the bottle and preventing it from rotating it in place. The force sensor in the arms will act as feedback and notify the controller to stop the motor once a certain force reading is achieved. System (3) will then lower system (2) until it makes contact. The force sensor on the bottom of system (2) will act as feedback and notify the controller to stop the motor once the smallest force reading is achieved. System (2) will then activate and twist the lid off the bottle. Finally, systems (2) and (3) will then go back to their initial position and the product will be ready to be used again.

For this to function as so, the motor on (2) will have to have its polarity switched. The controller, in this case an Arduino, will have to be programmed to understand the feedback received from the two force sensors and what motors it must stop. Ideally, once the program is written, the product would be tested to verify that the parameters established in the code work appropriately for all the bottle/jar dimensions.

Week 8 was updated. It turned out that the gearbox of the rack and pinion sub-assembly that was originally designed did not provide enough torque to the pinion so that a 300N force would be applied to the bottle/jar. A new gear train was figured out, the calculations were re-done, and the sub-assembly was redesigned.