Tile Art
For this project my team and I were tasked with
engineering a device
with 2.5 degrees of freedom. The process included coming up with an idea
for what the device will do, designing any an all mechanisms and parts
needed, building the device, and programming it. We decided to make a tile
art game where we took an image, cut it into a grid, and scrambled it on a
platform. The device would then be controlled by a joystick to move to,
pick up, and put down the tiles. We decided to use suction to pick up the
tiles, and a stepper motor to control the up and down motion of the
suction cup. We used two stepper motors for the x direction, and one for
the y direction. We created CAD models of the entire device and created
some custom parts to be used. The code for the device was done in Arduino
and essentially mapped the joystick movements to the stepper motors for
the x and y directions and the button on the joystick to move the suction
cup and active/deactivate the pump.
The results were exactly what
we had designed it to do. It is a playable
game that works without any significant issues. We found that the suction
was too strong when presenting due to the fact that we shortened the tube,
but it still worked with a little bit of fidgeting.
Overall we
learned how to design by an iterative process and how to code
an Arduino to control stepper motors.