Week 9: May 25th, 2016

Figure 12: Video of Working Prototype

This week, we chose to focus mainly on the final testing of our prototype.  Above in Figure 12 you can see a video of the final edition of our feeder operating as expected.  We took this week to make any final design modifications and to also create and rehearse the final presentation of our project. Overall, this design proved to be successful and feasible for a sophomore-leveled student. 

During the rest of the week, we will be practicing our presentation for the final week. 

Week 8: May 18th, 2016

Today was the day that each group switch their lab manuals with another group to test it out. Our group switched with a group that's manual dealt with designing a catapult arm out of K'NEX pieces. While Bryce went with the other group to help navigate the fish feeder manual, the rest of the team spent the lab period building a lever. The manual that we received was well written and straight to the point. The only qualifications that our design had to meet was that it had to hold a 2 inch diameter sphere that weighs 400 grams. Our final design of the arm is shown below.

Figure 11: Catapult Arm for Other Project

After the other team worked on our manual, we realized that we needed more steps that provided more guidance in our procedure. We assumed a general knowledge of circuits and programming that the group working on our manual did not possess. After editing our manual in the specific section that the other group worked on, we continued to write more of the manual that did not need to be tested. The other parts of our lab manual include the brainstorming of a mechanical component, building it, and testing the mechanical and electrical component together.

Next week we will work to test our final design and finalize our manual. Additionally we will continue to work on our final presentation.

Week 7: May 11, 2016

This week, we spent the majority of the lab period figuring out what part of our lab manual we will prepare for a group to test next week. Since they will only have one week to work on this and the entire manual deliverable covers 3 weeks, an independent part of this project must be created and ready for next week. The Arduino is the least creative art of our project, so we figured that would work well as a test run to make sure that our procedure was easy enough to follow. We wrote the manual to cover a basic lesson of how to use an Arduino, and then we finalized our design.

One of the issues we had with running the new motor was that the cardboard disc and the bottom and side of the container experienced too much friction with each other. We trimmed the disc so that it was a bit small than the container, because the rod is not perfectly straight and will slightly wobble the disc to make it scrape against the sides. Our final project is shown below.

Figure 10: Final Design

Next week we will trial run a different groups project as well as have our own trialed on. This will ensure that our lab manual is easy enough to follow. This will provide the proper editing that our manual needs. 

Week 6: May 4th, 2016

This week, we attempted to finalize the design. When putting together the motor and the rod and axle, however, wee ran into a few problems. The motor was not strong enough to hold the at the closed position, because the design was too heavy. The motor was able to spin while the rod was positioned perpendicular to gravity, so we have to modify our design to not include gravity to be as much of a factor. After brainstorming, we came up with the design below in figure 11. This design allows the motor to not be responsible for holding everything up, and it will be perpendicular to the force of gravity. The cardboard attached to the bottom has a hole on one side that will open the pringles can when rotated over the hole at the bottom on the container This is shown in figures 9 and 10. rotating the hole away from the other hole will close the device. The cardboard at the top enables the device to be the right length so there is not too much friction between the bottom of the container and the bottom cardboard piece. This device is much better than our old device because it doesn't assume that the motor can do anything besides spin the axle.

Figure 11: Mechanical Component

Figure 10: Bottom of disc 

Figure 9: bottom of container

Although this device was not our original design, it ultimately is better and works better with our product. It is feasible that people can come up with a design like this or close to this in two to three weeks even though it took us a bit longer. The manual will give hints and tidbits on how to successfully make an automatic fish feeder without just giving them a cookie cutter lab manual. Hints that would expedite this process would include noting that the motor is not that strong, and that K'nex pieces can be modified with additional pieces. Next week we will work on constructing the lab manual now that the building phase is complete.

Week 5: April 27, 2016

This week, we finished working on the Arduino. Drawing different schematics and looking online to see how the arduino worked, we realized that we needed a transistor. We drew a couple of schematics to see how the circuit will be able to provide enough power to run the motor which is the ultimate goal. We found that two transistors will be necessary in order to control power to operste the motor in two directions. This is needed in our final design in order to move the rod back and forth when connected to the device, which will in turn open and close the feeder. The final schematic is shown in the picture below.

Figure 8: Schematic of our bread-board Arduino circuit

Because we didn't have the transistors readily available in the innovation studio, the group took a field trip to the ECE parts department located on the second floor of bossone. We got everything we needed there. 

Figure 7: Electrical Engineering parts desk

Along with finalizing the electrical component of our project, we also built the mechanical component of our automatic fish feeder. We created an axial machine using K'NEX pieces to hinge a rod that will extend the length of the tube. When the motor rotates 90 degrees, the rod will move vertically and open the lid to the feeder. Factors to consider was how big we wanted the radius of the sphere to be, which determines the displacement of the rod, and how the rod will not rotate with the motor, but only translate downward. Our final design is shown below. 

Figure 6: Prototype opening mechanism

Next week, we will finalize the design by putting all of our components together. We will also spend the majority of lab writing up the lab manual. 

Week 4: April 20th, 2016

This week, we divided and conquered. Half of our team spent the majority working on the arduino. For those of you that don't know, an arduino is a circuit board that comes in handy when building digital devices or interactive objects. This includes coding and correct wiring from the board to the motor. We were experimenting with the program which took the majority of class.

Figure 5: The Arduino Board

We were having trouble completing the circuit with the right outputs that are needed for our device. We are struggling with creating enough power to enable the function of the motor that we need. We used the internet to see if we could find a solution to this problem. We believe the issue is the way we are wiring the Arduino to the motor. We found that a small DC motor may require more current than the Arduino can supply. To fix this, a transistor is needed. We will order this transistor for next week's class and test it then.

Figure 4: Bryce Working on the Arduino

The other half of the team worked on the creation of the lab manual. We looked at the different examples of college level lab manuals that are available on the course website to start the outline. We created a basic outline of the manual and will work next week to creating a working rough draft.

Week 3: April 13th, 2016

Figure 3: Engineering Design Process

This week, we started the design process for the feeder. Factors that we considered while making this feeder included how it would be mounted to the fish tank, what size would be the most effective, and which mechanism would be the most energy efficient while still be accurate. Our initial design is found below. We decided it would be best to mount the actual feeder with a suction cup and have the motor be put above it so it does not touch the water.

Figure 2: Self Feeder Attachment

A close-up sketch shows the actual mechanism that we decided for the self feeder. The motor will have a rod fixated radially outwarded and connected to the mouth of the feeder. The motor would rotate back and forth, which would push the rod outward, opening the mouth. The motor will be run by an Arduino which would turn on at a specific time everyday. The arduino was not included in he sketch because we are still figuring out how that will be incorporated into the machine.

Figure 1: Self Feeder Brainstorm

We finished purchasing all of our supplies this week as well to ensure that we will be ready to start building next week. As well as building the parts in the sketch, we will also finalize the design for the arduino and how it connects to the machine.