Let's brain storm and decide on what to make in a week. machine week!

Idea presentation.

On the previous day we have asked everyone in our team to come up with some idea it can be big or small. We listed all the 6 ideas which was put forward by our team.

1. Selective Erassing - The idea was put forward by Pallab
2. Real time XY-Plotter -Hanani introduced this idea, a conventional XY plotter with real-time GCode receiving capability.
3. Waste collector -Abhinav came with this idea, he wanted the machine to be useful for a third person as well as it should satify a social cause,He mentioned the waste disposal scenario near our campus and his idea was a solution to it.
4. Table cleaner - It was put forward by Neveena, she wanted the machine to have some utility since we are putting in so much effort and it should be functional. she proposed a table cleaner for T-leaf a cafe which we have in our Campus.
5. Peeler n Juicer -the idea was popped by Abel he wanted a juicer which peels certain fruits first and blends later.
6. Touchless chess -Ananthu came up with this idea, playing chess without using hands it was an artificial intelligence related project.

After presenting the ideas and checking the feasibility we took a poll on the machine to be made and we reached to a conclusion and chooses the table cleaner we discussed more about it.But then after discussing with our mentors we came to know it was hard to finish the particular machine in a week! but still we tried to stick on to the same and talked about the possibilities of doing it but as we had time constraints we dropped the idea. We listened to Prof.Neil's class during the Global session which gave us a more clear idea on what to do during the machine week. After a lot of Discussions, arguments we reached on to a decision to make a XY-PLOTTER.

Arriving at core XY-plotter

Based on our Discussions we thought of making a pick and place robot which works based on Spider cam mechanism which is normally used in cricket stadiums.The idea was to adapt this mechanism to make a pick and place robo for our work desk, so that we can transfer items with ease from one end to other.During the Discussions we realized that we could use a simple line follower robot for the same purpose but it wont work if we have an obstacle in between the path, moreover this particular project didn't cover the basic deliverables which was put forward by Prof.Neil. After a lot of research we found the mechanism behind the vertical pick and place robot and it was called as POLARGRAPH CNC PLOTTER We again pivoted the idea to make a white board Plotter using the same mechanism.

As this is a group project our goal was to make Something different and because of the same we were not satisfied in doing the polargraph cnc plotter. FINALLY!! We agreed to make a horizontal table top based CNC Plotter. Due to time limitation and of the uncertainty regarding the feasibility of the project we researched more on a possible horizontal CNC mechanisms and with the help of our instructor we settled with CORE XY Mechanism inspired from ILAN MOYER..The idea was to make a CNC Plotter which is capable of plotting and erasing using a modified end feed based on core xy mechanism.

The discussion which lasted for 24hrs!!!!

Alright! Now you might be thinking we had some amazing informative discussions but the reality was exactly the opposite. Abel wanted to adapt the core xy mechanism for 4 stepper motors since it had better precision and modularity compared to the conventional 2 stepper motor arrangement. The reasoning lasted for around 24hrs and we finally settled with the conventional core xy mechanism since the 4 motor mechanism required us to make a custom kinematic equation, we were sure that we wont be able to finish within a span of 1 week!!

What is core XY?

The corexy kinematics is a complex motion system where X or Y motor move together or opposite of each other to move the carriage from left to right or towards or away . If you were to move just one motor you would see the print head move diagonal.. If the two motors move opposite of each other the print head will move along the X-axis, If the two motors move in the same direction the carriage will move along the Y-axis. In other words,If you are building a CNC machine, a 3D printer, or even a plotter, you have a need for motion in both the X and Y directions. There are many ways to accomplish this, for example, some printers move the tool in the X direction and the bed in the Y direction while others move the entire X carriage in the Y direction and yet more use a delta mechanism. However, one of the oldest means of doing this is the Core XY method. It is interesting because both motors remain stationary and the business end moves entirely on belts or cords. The idea behind Core XY goes back to at least old drafting tables. You can think of it as an object held by two ends of the same belt. As one end of the belt gets shorter the other end gets longer. The belts are arranged so that motion of one motor causes the tool to move at a 45 degree angle. That means you have to move both motors to go in a straight line.

Image caption

The above image shows the typical Core XY mechanism.

Why core XY-plotter?

Before going into the technical aspects lets know about the basics of Core XY mechanism.CoreXY provides a fundamental building block of many computerized fabrication tools - cartesian motion - in a simple and adaptable format. The Core XY is not an implementation but a technique which is simple as it can be implemented using three structural plate and fast as it permits rapid acceleration yet flexible when it comes to material selection.

Principle of operation.