As the final project presentation is getting closer, for this week, we have 5 questions to answer:
I thought that by this time I would have covered at least 80% of the final project, however, this is not the case. By now, I finished the design of the eye pan and tilt mechanism, and started the 3D printing process. I still need to work on 2D design and fabrication of the head parts, design and fabricate my microcontroller, and integrate all these together.
I started with the hardest part of the project which is the eye mechanism. The concept on paper looked fine, but after I fabricated some parts, I realized that the dimensions of some parts limits the angles of pan and tilt of the eyes. I had to go back to Fusion 360 to adjust the dimensions to give the eyes more space to rotate. The end result was satisfactory and now the pan and tilt mechanisms have a range of around 70 degrees.
I still need to decide how am I going to power my microcontroller board. I think that I need two seperate power sources, one to power the microcontroller, and the other to power the servo motors. I'm planning to redesign Satshakit to integrate it in my project, in this case I will need to design a shield for Satchakit were I will connect and power the servo motors. There is an alternative solution that I can adopt, which is redesigning Satchakit in a way to integrate servo pinheaders with VCC, GND and signal pins, and use only one power source to power both the microcontroller and the servo motors.
What will happen when I finish the project but I don't like the outcome because it didn't end up as I expected? I guess I will have to accept the fact that I have a lot to learn, and I believe that the final outcome in itself is a very good start that I can iterate on later on.
I learned that nothing goes as planned, so I should incorporate "failure" time in my plan, so I won't panic when things doesn't work, because I was expecting so!