Week of 11/17 - 11/21

This week, I was primarily focused on designing and making prototypes from the physical aspect of my project. I first wanted to start with the base, since I would need that first anyway, and I wanted to get it done before I started working on the arms. I spent a lot of time designing and redesigning it, but in the end, I think it turned out well.

I then cut it out using acrylic, and I want to end up making it out of aluminum for the finished thing. The servo motors I'm using aren't very expensive, which also means their torque is not as high, so I need to make my robot not too heavy, or it could stall the motors with its weight.

I put a motor in the slots, and it fit perfectly, so I will continue to use the acrylic version for all my tests, but in the end, I do want to use aluminum. Next, I started working on a bracket of sorts that could attach to the other side of the motor in order to give multiple contact points. This will not only reinforce the strength of the printed parts, but also of the motors, and hopefully allow them to move more than they normally could.

I printed it out, and it looked good, but I had forgotten to leave a space for the wires. I redesigned it, and I still had to shave off a little bit in the end, but I changed it in my design, so now when I print them for real (since I will need 18 of them), I can just print them and not worry about the wires. I also started to work on the arm, and I'm still working out the specifics, but I have a rough outline of what I want to do.