Project Development

Ideation

After my great journey in Fab Academy, I have decided to change initial project idea. I want to make something to have fun with, enjoy the process & also try something new.
after a little bit of brain storming & walking through some great projects documentations stumbled upon this project "Paper Airplane Launcher By Dano Wall" which inspire me to build a Paper Airplane Launcher.

Planning

Construction

For the design, I started by making a low fidelity cardboard prototype to determine proper dimensions of the final project and to be able to visualize it more. Also it helped me determine proper length of the airplane.

Then For the CAD design I used Autodesk Fusion 360.

• I imported some components from GrabCAD.
• The design consists of mainly of 3D Printed parts. with some wooden parts that are fabricated using laser cutter.

Electronics

• I used KiCAD for PCB design.
• I design 2 PCBs one for the launcher it self & one for the remote control.
  • Launcher PCB based on Xiao RP2040.(Output)
    • In my launcher PCB I used L293DD Motor driver that drives the launcher motors & the linear solenoid as they are my output devices.
    • The whole PCB work with 5V DC supplied by SMPS 5v 5A for motors and solenoid to work well.
    • Also I used HC-5 Bluetooth Module for serial communicate.
  • Remote PCB based on Xiao RP2040.(Input)
    • In my Remote PCB I used Joystick & push button as input devices.
    • The whole PCB is powerd by 9V battery so I used NCP1117 5V regulator to as all my components works with 5V.
    • Also I used HC-5 Bluetooth Module for serial communicate.

Launcher PCB

Remote PCB

Launcher PCB

Remote PCB

Programming

• I had 2 PCBs so I write 2 Arduino sketchs Master (Remote) & Slave (Launcher).
• Master (Remote):
  • I write a code that reads the Joystick values and map it to just 3 values on each axis and reads if the push button and send it over serial in one line just separated by commas so that the slave could process it.
• Slave (Launcher):
  • I write a code that reads the values the comes through serial and uses CSV Parser for Arduino so I could read the comma separated values form serial and check on each value individually.
• HC-5 Bluetooth Modules:
  • I followed this amazing How to Mechatronics Tutorial that shows how to use AT commands to configure and pair two HC-05 Bluetooth Modules as Master and Slave.

Remote

(Master)

                    
    #include <Chrono.h>
    
    #define x 26
    #define y 27
    #define btn 28
    
    
    Chrono btnChrono;
    int previousButtonState;
    
    int fire(int newButtonState) {
      if (previousButtonState != newButtonState) {
        previousButtonState = newButtonState;
    
        if (newButtonState == LOW && btnChrono.hasPassed(10)) {
          return 9;
        }
        btnChrono.restart();
      }
      return 0;
    }
    
    void setup() {
      pinMode(x, INPUT);
      pinMode(y, INPUT);
      pinMode(btn, INPUT_PULLUP);
      previousButtonState = digitalRead(btn);
    
      Serial.begin(115200);
      Serial1.begin(115200);
    }
    
    void loop() {
      Serial1.print(map(analogRead(x), 0, 1023, 0, 3));
      Serial1.print(',');
      Serial1.print(map(analogRead(y), 0, 1023, 0, 3));
      Serial1.print(',');
      Serial1.println(fire(digitalRead(btn)));
    
      Serial.print(map(analogRead(x), 0, 1023, 0, 3));
      Serial.print(',');
      Serial.print(map(analogRead(y), 0, 1023, 0, 3));
      Serial.print(',');
      Serial.println(fire(digitalRead(btn)));
    
      delay(150);
    
    }     
                    
                

Launcher

(Slave)

                    
    #include <Servo.h>
    #include <CSV_Parser.h>
    
    #define panPin 26
    #define tiltPin 27
    #define dcMotors 28
    #define solenoid 29
    
    Servo pan;
    Servo tilt;
    
    char *incomingData;
    int panAngle = 90;
    int tiltAngle = 90;
    
    
    void setup() {
      pan.attach(panPin);
      tilt.attach(tiltPin);
      pan.write(panAngle);
      tilt.write(tiltAngle);
      Serial1.begin(115200);
      Serial.begin(115200);
      pinMode(dcMotors, OUTPUT);
      digitalWrite(dcMotors, HIGH);
      pinMode(solenoid, OUTPUT);
      Serial1.flush();
      Serial.flush();
    }
    void loop() {
    
      CSV_Parser cp(Serial1.readStringUntil('\n').c_str(), /*format*/ "c", false);
      incomingData = (char *)cp[0];
      Serial.print("X = ");
      Serial.println(int(incomingData[0]));
      Serial.print("Y = ");
      Serial.println(incomingData[1], DEC);
      Serial.print("Fire = ");
      Serial.println(incomingData[2], DEC);
    
      if (int(incomingData[0]) == 2 && panAngle > 0) {
        panAngle -= 10;
        pan.write(panAngle);
      }
      if (int(incomingData[0]) == 0 && panAngle < 180) {
        panAngle += 10;
        pan.write(panAngle);
      }
    
      if (int(incomingData[1]) == 2 && tiltAngle < 149) {
        tiltAngle += 10;
        tilt.write(tiltAngle);
      }
      if (int(incomingData[1]) == 0 && tiltAngle > 30) {
        tiltAngle -= 10;
        tilt.write(tiltAngle);
      }
    }   
                    
                

Output

Airplane Launcher By Mohahmed Tarek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Challanges

while trying my Airplane launcher the launcher wheels didn't have enough fraction with the paper airplane so I add a little bit of the hot glue on the slides of the wheels to increase the fraction and it works

Future Work

• Add more features like live cam feed.
• Design paper airplane magazine that holds multiple airplane and feed them one by one to the launcher.

BOM