19. Project Development¶
Complete your final project, tracking your progress:
what tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
what's working? what's not?
what questions need to be resolved?
what will happen when?
what have you learned?
Project management
The development of my final project can be seen here.
Project Management: What Has Been Completed, What Remains, What Will Happen When):¶
Here is a list of all the parts of my project:
| Week | Component |
|---|---|
| CAD | Design the interior frame and possibly the exterior frame, there will be lots of parts that need to go together |
| computer-controlled cutting | Laser cutparts of the framework |
| electronics production | PCB board that connects all the components (motor, bluetooth…) |
| 3D scanning and printing | 3d print the wheels |
| electronics design | Designing the PCB board |
| computer-controlled machining | cutting parts of the framework |
| embedded programming | program PCB boards |
| input devices | processing app- joystick that controls the motors |
| output devices | motors |
| networking and communications | bluetooth module |
| interface and application programming | processing app- joystick that controlls the motors |
| mechanical design/machine design | Hooking up all the different parts of my robot machine |
I decided to make a Gannt chart to organize the rest of my project. I made a complete list of every part of the project that I need and put it into an excel spreadsheet template that should help me keep track of how far I am along in the process. It describes what needs to be done, and what will happen when as of the 21st of June.
Gantt Chart blank template.pdf
You can also see my Cad files. I have been slowly developing these over the past couple of weeks in my free time. These are mostly done.
CAD Fusion 360 files:
Drive train and other internal workings
External shell inspired by palla: (NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This file was never used. I tried printing it twice on the 3d printers but both prints failed. I switched to using a composite to make the shell. Notes on how that turned out on the final project page. The top file also changed a lot too before he project was over)
As you can see from the gaant chart I did a lot of resreach the week of the 4th (before we got back into the lab due to covid related issues) and I spent a lot of the time last week working on the code, because I think that is going to be one of the hardest parts for me to complete.
Summary of what is done:¶
The cad files are the only thing that are completely done.
What still needs to be resolved:¶
I still need to print/cut create the files in real life and ensure they are functional. One big question I need to resolve is how to implement a honolonmic drivetrain wiht inverse kinematics. I have been working on the code, but it isn’t done yet. This is how I can ensure the drivetrain is truly holonomic. I have done some research, but I am still a long way from creating functional code that uses this method. I also have more research to do on bluetooth communications. I have done some already (can be seen in the final project documentation) but I need to do more to figure out how to get both the head and the body to interact with each other and with my computer, which will be sending commands via a processing app. (NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I simplified the project and now there is only one bluetooth device, from the body, communicating with the computer). These are the main issues/ questions I have that I need to resolve.
What I have learned¶
There has been a lot that I have learned over the course of this class. First and foremost, I have learned more than I ever expected to learn about engineering. Before I took this class, I had a vague idea of how to use some of the items in the lab, but I couldn’t have imagined knowing all the information I know know a couple of months ago (I also cannot believe this course was only 20 weeks. It feels like it’s been at least a year or two.)
I also learned that planning a project is hard (Ok I already kind of knew this, but not really). Project management was a severely undervalued skill by me at the beginning of this process. I’ve always done the project planning that school requires me to do to be successfull, but this was a whole other level. The weeks where I planned ahead efficiently, managed time well, was organized, etc, went way smoother than weeks where I was disorganized and didn’t have a good plan. This is especially true for the final project- during a lot of weeks I said things like “I chose to do this because I thought it would help advance my final project” and as you can see on my final project page, many of these things weren’t included int he final project. I do not think I had a good enough plan of my final project when I started the process of fabacademy- If I could go back,I would remedy that. I learned that I do not enjoy working with ADXL343 accelerometer chips, and will not be touching them with a ten foot pole in the future. I also learned that putting Niel’s face on objects (ie, learning how to engrave with the laser cutter by engraving Niels face on a box, printing his face as a sticker, etc) is really stupidly funny.
There are many more things I learned, but there were two really big takeaways for me. I am so happy I was able to do this course, and learn all the things that I have learned in the past couple of months. I cannot wait to continue to use all these skills in the future to continue doing engineering!