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Applications and Implications, Project Development

this weeks assignment was to: Plan a final project masterpiece that integrates the range of units covered, answering: What will it do? Who's done what beforehand? What sources will you use? What will you design? What materials and components will be used? Where will come from? How much will they cost? What parts and systems will be made? What processes will be used? What questions need to be answered? How will it be evaluated? Your project should incorporate 2D and 3D design, additive and subtractive fabrication processes, electronics design and production, embedded microcontroller design, interfacing, and programming, system integration and packaging Where possible, you should make rather than buy the parts of your project Projects can be separate or joint, but need to show individual mastery of the skills, and be independently operable

All Individual Segments of this week will be done below, but segments will probably be ordered differently in the final project page to make it more readable

Final Project Answers

What will it do?

My Final project will recreate the "evil eye" from the videogame Rainbow Six Siege as close as I can get it. This includes 1. Infinite Rotation - In the game, the base can rotate around infinitely, so that means that there can be no physical connections between the two pieces. I looked into sliprings to allow for those connections, but they are really expensive or really unreliable. 2. Wireless Control - Again, in the game the "operators" use their phone to see a feed and look around with the camera. Im hoping to replicate that with a webserver that displays the camera output and has a joystick for looking around

Who's done what beforehand?

While nobody has made a camera that can infinitely rotate around, a lot of people have made pan tilt zoom cameras out of 2 servos. While a servo is promising for moving the upper head, a servo that could move the head up would cost about as the entire other half of the project and require much more power then a geared up stepper. Also, the camera has a lot of documentation, but an open camera that allows me to make my own website was hard to even find the library, and I don't think anybody has used this xiao cam with movement.

What sources will you use?

Datasheets will be really strong, especially for any chips I use. I will also be using the arduino examples heavily, especially when figuring out the camera. For reference in the physical design.

What will you design?

I plan to import this model into fusion and design off of that I will use no pre-made files when fabricating, instead creating everything with help of that reference but also then rigging it with mechanisms so that it can actually move.

What materials and components will be used?

The majority of it will be 3d printed, probably with PETG as thats what I have lying around. Im also going to use clear acrlyc, probably 1/4th inch thick for the windows. On the electronics side, it will use 2 stepper motors and their required drivers, 2 microcontrollers, one definitely being the seeed xiao esp32-s3 sense because of its built in camera, and another being some wifi enabled microcontroller, likely another esp series chip. In order to power it all, it will use a battery management board to supply a stable voltage, which will be connected to a single 18650 3.7v atleast 2500mah cell each.

Where will come from?

In order to allow other people to make this (I dont plan on selling it or anything) I will buy from only Amazon or Digikey. For the 18650, I get them from a battery wholesaler in town but if there is none near whoever else wants to make this I've used 18650 battery store in the past with no issues. Be warned that I think it only does US and adjacent shipping, but any 18650 cell will do

How much will they cost?

The second largest goal in this project was making it cheap. As seen in my bill of materials on my final project from midterm here. In total, as of midterm the project will cost 50.39 total, but adding in the cost of acrylic it will be around 54$ of materials for the entire project.

What parts and systems will be made?

Everything past the most basic material will be made in house. I am going to make the gears, use the experience I got from the group work to make 3d printed bearings, and generally anything that can be made on the 3d printer will be. I want this to be easy to access, so maybe the most advanced rare material will be the screws that hold the stepper in place, if I can't find a 3d printed way for that

What processes will be used?

The main brunt will be 3d printing, but I also am going to laser cut out the acrylic and use heat to bend it into the circular shape for the window. I will also be using PCB milling, and maybe etching using a laser cut mask. I will also be using unconventional pcb design for the stepper drivers, as they are soldered right onto the servo itself

What questions need to be answered?

  • Battery Life
  • Rotation Speed
  • Camera Quality
  • Latency

How will it be evaluated?

  • Battery Life: Spin it around until power runs out
  • Rotation Speed: Measure time for 1 full rotation, or alternatively find out max speed of the stepper before putting it in, and calculate with the gear ratio
  • Camera Quality: just watch it for a bit, while it moves, to see if theres any tearing or dropped frames in the stream
  • Latency: Put something up to the camera, see how long it takes for it to appear on the phone

As of right now...

What tasks have been completed?

The Electronics are entirely finished, and the 3d design is completed.

What tasks remain?

I need to print out and post process the 3d design to smooth it, cut the window out of acrylic and bend it, and after getting all that assemble it all together.

what has worked? what hasn't

as of so far, most of the electronics worked first try, but due to the weird way of interfacing with the drv8835 (it uses phase/enable pins instead of a dir/step pin like im used to), Getting it to work required guessing 16 times until the step order was correct and it spun. Same for the camera, where the code for the library didn't have an easy way to get the raw camera feed onto a website I made, so I had to find a different library that gave it, and then build a website around how it gave that link. The battery board also was a failure, just because I don't want to burn down the building, and thats an easy way to burn down the building.

what questions need to be resolved?

I need to figure out how I will bend the acrylic, as my brother told me it was possible but it wasn't anywhere on his documentation so I'll have to research it. Also, due to the way my gears will eventually mesh together I will probably need some intermediate stage for the bottom gear.

what will happen when?

While im not a fan of direct "this will happen on this date", I know that I will finish the 3d design, start printing it out, then start figuring out the window, which I will hopefully finish once all the parts of the 3d prints are done, which will then allow me to smooth and paint them, before putting it all together.

what have you learned?

Electronics design was a big part, as well as advanced stepper usage, advanced 3d design based on a reference, optimizing a 3d design for movement, laser cutting non-flat objects, and programming a multi-node network.

All of this writing will be embedded somewhere in my final project documentation