17. Machine design¶
Monkapolt/guillotine monkey¶
See our groups documenter Daniel for the complete documentation. The servo arm powered monkey was a good first round prototyping exorcize however my subsystems task in the machine changed. The new function is to launch a ball that reaches the next subsystem that triggers a reaction to the next. I was looking at different catapult mechanisms for this. I still wanted to run with the monkey idea, so why not a “Monkapult.” This mechanism essentially works as a spring loaded hinge. The monkeys arms are on a hinge loaded by rubber bands. My design features a motion sensor that detects the ball rolling past down the ramp and for that to trigger the guillotine monkey to begin chopping the rubber band.
I started by designing a solenoid board with a distance sensor.
See week 12 for more information.¶
Next I compiled a program that executes the solenoid to fire when the distance sensor is triggered.
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
const int trigPin = 9;
const int echoPin = 8;
const int RX = 1;
const int TX = 0;
const int solenoidPin = 3;
const int trigger = 10;
SoftwareSerial Serial (TX, RX);
float distance, duration;
void setup () {
pinMode (trigPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode (echoPin, INPUT);
Serial.begin (9600);
pinMode(solenoidPin, OUTPUT); //Sets the pin as an output
//Serial.println ("Initializing");
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(5);
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(10);
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
distance = duration * 0.034 / 2;
delay(10); // for data to be read correctly by processing.
if (distance < trigger) {
digitalWrite(solenoidPin, HIGH); //Switch Solenoid ON
delay(10); //Wait 1 Second
digitalWrite(solenoidPin, LOW); //Switch Solenoid OFF
delay(10);
}
}
Part of this assignment is to have a “packaged” machine so I wanted to hide the solenoid. My classmate JT and I came up with a monkey seat design that hides the solenoid perfectly and provides the monkey with a comfortbale seat.
In addition to the “monapolt” I designed and produced t-shirts for our group. The picture below features one of our wonderful instructors Greg Buckland
